Wild Turkey Hunt
After over 24 hours of not being in the woods, Thursday evening had me feeling the pull. My wife got back from shopping in time for me to leave the kids and git to the woods.
I had an hour and a half that I spent on the toe of a ridge in a fallow field. The side of the ridge had hardwoods on it in which the birds would feed and roost. At best, I would work a Tom that evening, but I was really there to roost one.
Well, I called no Tom, but after the sun went behind the mountain, and as the air began to cool, I heard some fly-ups in the creek valley below the ridge and to the west. When they were finished flying up, and before it got totally dark, I circled around the nose of the ridge and walked the path along the tree edge up the valley northward toward the fly-ups. I had made a stick blind (I love stick blinds) under an Osage orange tree and wanted to see if it was suitable for a set up on the roosted birds.
While quietly approaching the stick blind, I saw two silhouettes up in the tree edge to the east on the opposite side of the valley. I looked at them through my binoculars and got a glimpse that looked like turkey though the fading light gave not another conformation. Because the stick blind was originally built to accommodate birds from a different approach, I instead selected a large walnut tree under which to set up and cleared away the debris from beneath. I then slipped away home.
I got up at 4:00 as usual, but got away quickly because I wanted plenty of time and plenty of dark to set up. I parked well away from the birds and walked the path northward up the valley to the walnut tree at the base of which I unlimbered my gear. I've a little web seat that I placed at the base, a leafyflage screen that I placed to my left (left being eastward toward the opposite side) and three decoys (two hens and a Jake) that I set out to my left in the clear grass that grows under the young walnut trees. On my stool, I fiddled and piddled until I'm set and ready; gun rest on left knee, the Freak on the right, mouth call in, gobble tube ready just in case (I thought I'd make any competing hens come to me instead of Tom).
I was sitting there all quiet like, happy with my prep yet wondering if it'll all work out. I knew the birds used the area, but I wasn't sure what was going to happen. Then I heard the first gobble. It was on the opposite slope but more north. Still, I thought I could work that bird, but at first I did nothing. When I thought that I might have heard the faint clucks of some hens, I gave the softest three yelps that I could and then clucked. A moment later he gobbled again but I said nothing. What I believed to be the hens clucked a few and tree yelped too so I clucked a few too. When the gobbler gobbled the second time, I gave him a half volume yelp, yelp, yelp, cluck.
It was then that I noticed the stirring of a bird up in the trees. It was directly across the valley to my left and in the direction of my gun. I took it to be one of the birds that I roosted last night. I don't know why, but I thought it a hen, so when I finally creeped my binoculars up to my eyes, and then my eyes up to the bird, I saw it was a Tom in strut, and with a mature tail no less. He was about 50 yards away. Much to my delight, he soon turns on his limb to face away from the other turkeys. I was watching him at 8x and saw him watching my decoys by cranking his ol' turkey head in a way that pointed his ol' turkey eyeball down at my dekes. I was thinking that things were getting good. I made the happy face.
Suddenly, and before I expected it, that Tom was the first off the roost and coming right at me. I wanted him to set down just past my decoys which would be perfect for blastin', but his trajectory was not right! He was going to land on me, or if not, then right in front of me! Instead, he landed on the path 5 yards to my 7 O'clock. Wouldn't ya' figure.
I couldn't quite get an eye onto him, torquing them as I might, but I expected him to soon move toward the decoys, and hence, the gun. He obliged me by making a move out and away but then stops at my 8 O'clock and 25 yards. At least now I could get an eyeball on him. The other Tom gobbled, and for the first time, so did he. He stayed in that spot spittin' and drummin' and I thought, "Cool, weren't we just talking about drumming on aldeer.com"?
While he played for my pleasure, I slowly oozed my gun barrel his way whenever I dared. The young blackberry bushes sometimes obscured, sometimes did not; his head sometimes up and sometimes down, sometimes my way, sometimes away, but never up, clear and sideways until BOOM! Again, I made the happy face.
That turkey did the turkey flop like turkeys sometimes do. Two other turkeys flew from the trees. I think the first Tom did an O$#!+! I was about to make the happy face again when that turkey's head came up, so I made the "Oh No!" face instead.
The turkey got up and dragged a wing back toward the creek so I got up and chased after it. When it got to the creek, it turned north as if to follow the stream. I got a gun rest on a walnut and waited for the Tom to pass the opening up the creek, but this Tom was not yet ready to be up a creek.
It instead turned back toward me and for the second time I thought, "Oh oh, too close"! It seemed more feasible to whack him with my shotgun rather than shoot him, but I put the scope to my eye in time to acquire the bird as it passed by at less than five yards and fired. BOOM!
I missed cleanly and the bird headed away southward. I ran after that bird surprised that I could keep up. Then it stopped and squatted, and there we stood. With my empty shotgun in hand, I was one yard from the Tom wondering what to do. I thought that if I went and stood on it's head that it would go all flappy/scratchy on me so I considered other options. I looked around for a stick but there were none near by. There was a rock one step away. Not the best tool, but it was all I had. When I reached for the rock, the Tom went, "Oh no! He's reaching for a rock!" It got up and ran southward as good as it ever ran since getting that buzz of lead I sent him. I ran after it.
It was then the thought occurred, "What am I going to do when I catch the bird, and what if I can't get close enough to catch it"? So, I broke away and ran to my vest by the walnut tree to get my last cartridge.
When I reloaded and returned, that bird was gone. I made the sad face.
I went up on the ridge to cut off an escape that way but I didn't see him there or anywhere. I searched low. I searched middle. I searched low again. I searched the creek. My Tom was gone. Again, sad face.
Getting a good idea inspired by desperation, I picked up and quickly drove home to retrieve my retriever in hopes that she would lead me to my bird.
Jessie loves to go afield so it was little surprise that she was not much help. Oh sure, I showed her where I first shot, and let her sniff some feathers. She even sniffed out the loop the bird made before the second shot, but soon she was pissing, pooping, eating grass and generally acting like a dog. I took her to the spot where the bird last laid to let her get a new sniff. From there she seemed to make an honest effort working into the wind while tracking back and forth. It seemed promising at times, but before long the realization came that the bird would be lost. Once again, I wore the sad face.
Thinking the ground sufficiently disturbed so as to preclude any more hunting, I took my sad face to the barn to see if the tractor would give me enough work to mow some clover. I had been having alot of trouble operating the thing without it overheating, but I had recently done some maintenance to it and hoped that it would now run cooler.
I did manage to get a quarter acre cut while keeping the temperature guage just under the red line, but I had run out of time. I turned up the hill and toward the barn. The problem was that the borderline hot engine would only get hotter going uphill, so it became necessary to head off into the brush along a less steep route. The up side of this was that I would get to pass through some good deer areas so that I could look for deer and shed antlers.
Jessie and I were nearly over the hill when, giving a bark, she saw something move. I looked over and what did I see? The Tom! Not considering that my shotgun was in my truck back at the barn, I took the tractor out of gear and we both jumped off to try and catch that bird. Jessie was good at chasing, but not so good at grabbing so I had to try to get in front of them. Jessie went off on a wild goose chase while I stayed with the bird. I was kind of happy...
...that Jessie was running elsewhere because I saw the bird on the other side of a big blackberry thicket and wanted it to stay there. I ran around to it but it ran around too. When I tried to cut it off again, I lost visual contact on account of the high blackberry bushes.
I was starting to think as I widened my search that the maybe-not-so-badly-wounded bird had given me the slip again. Then I heard more than the usual dog commotion back at the blackberry thicket. Rushing back, I found my excited dog digging into the blackberry bushes that she normally would try to avoid except that that was not my dog I was seeing. It was the turkey trying to get away from my dog!
By this time I've had the presence of mind to pick up a stick at a time when one was handy. This particular stick was a crooked piece of slightly rotted sassafras just long enough that had it been straighter and sturdier, it would have made a nice bludgeon. I just hoped that it would be up to the job.
I closed upon the Tom as it struggled to leave the briers. I raised the stick in determined rage...
...ready to smite that Tom to make him mine. Then much to my surprise...
...that bird gets airborne for the first time since he was shot. There I was running along side of that bird while beginning to think that I might could smack that bird out of the air. He was probably thinking too; thinking there he was flying alongside me and that I might be able to smack him out of the air because he started to climb beyond my reach. I watched in disbelief as my now fully engaged dog ran and leaped for the departing bird. As the Tom gained altitude, it crashed into the top of a 15 ft. pine, but it did not light. It did not stop. It did not fall to the ground. It instead made an amazing recovery for a once shot, thrice scared, long chased, barely able to fly turkey. So amazing, in fact, that I began to think it was flying out of my life for good. Refer to the above for the sad face.
Exasperated as I was, I ran again. I had to as my dog was running after the bird in such a determined manner that I began to rethink the not-so-good idea of having her here in the first place because they were fifty yards out and heading fast away.
I was wondering how long I would have to run to maybe get this bird when it crashed into the tops of some sumacs trees and fell to the ground. My dang dog was hot on it but still not grabbing a hold. I did another fifty yard dash, stick still in hand, to where my dog was chasing the bird away and downhill. I saw the bird trying to get away but stymied by more blackberry bushes. I called my dog so that she would quit pushing that bird as by then I was getting quite tired of running. I ran up to the bird that was against another blackberry thicket and...
Whack! Head comes up. Whack! Whack!
