Turkey Time!

When the grass starts turnin green and the temp starts rising into the 60’s & 70’s, my temp starts rising as well.  There simply is nothing quite like watching the sun just begin to break over a dew drenched field, no wind (can I repeat NO WIND), and hearing one of those deep throaty gobbles just 70 yrds into the brush.  It’s amazing how a simple bird has the power to make a grown man’s blood pressure escalate!

The last two years I’ve been taking advantage of Missouri’s youth hunt and have taken youths out to chase the wild turkey.  It has been a blast.  Last year the 14 yr old I took shot a 24 lb tom while it was sleeting!  That was a first time hunting or guiding to see a bird shot while it was sleeting (hopefully the last). 

This years hunt on April the 4th was also successfull.  I took out a 13yr old and his dad who was doing the filming.  Neither had ever been turkey hunting so I was excited about the opportunity.  We were hunting a new piece of ground that had been graciously donated for the youth hunt.  A buddy and I had went out a few evenings before and sort of scouted the place and even rearranged some brush making a blind.  That Saturday morning was beautiful and clear.  Three birds opened up to my hoot owl call just about 200 yrds away across a deep valley on the next ridge.  Ok, I’ll be honest, if there’s a weakness I have while turkey hunting it is running and gunning at times when my butt needs to remain planted!  We listened to these birds going crazy for about 10 minutes and then they flew down.  The next time they gobbled I would’ve sworn that they’d moved70 yards to our left moving away from us down the ridge to another valley on the other side of them.  In the meantime, the wind had picked up to where it was blowing  like crazy – a factor that I didn’t take into account before we moved. 

Well, I wasn’t having none of them getting to the open valley so I gathered up the crew and we slipped around to try and cut them off.  We ended up slipping up the side of the ridge they had roosted on.  We were about half way up when one cut loose just over the crest of the ridge.  We were close enough to sort of feel it in our chests.  So here we are now sitting in the most uncomfortable positions on the side of what may as well of been a cliff.  We couldn’t move cuz it wasn’t 30 seconds before they started filing over the ridge one by one just 60 yrds to our right.  By this time I felt like a thousand fire ants had crawled around my legs and were having at me.  Long story short we had to wait till nearly 20 birds in total filed over the ridge and headed – yep you guessed it, directly where we had started!  I’m pretty sure that they sat in the blind for awhile;-)  Well we finally let all the turkeys pass and began a long and demanding hike to try and circle the birds.  We cirlced and set up and I began to call periodically.  We couldn’t see but about 40 yards in front of us and couldn’t hear much farther than that due to the hurricane style winds.  We sat there for maybe 20 minutes when one gobbles about 70 yards away.  I began to say things to that bird that would make most respectable birds blush and it wasn’t long before we were watching tail feathers go back and forth in a strutting zone.  That was as far as he wanted to come.  I purred, I cut, I rustled the leaves but he decided he had all the hens he need around him so if this hen wanted him then she could come the rest of the way. 

I took the youth’s gun and we began a belly crawl.  He did great we got within 35 yards of the bird but he still couldn’t see well enough for a shot.  He had his gun up and was ready but the bird just wouldn’t take the few more steps out from behind a big tree.  It was after about 1 min of this that I saw his eyes get real big as they moved to the right.  I looked to our right and just 20 yards away were 2 big fat toms in full strut!  At this point the youth was nervous and tired (a bad combination) and the shot was a clean miss.  Turkeys of course flew everywhere, and he was pretty bummed.  I told him that it happens to all of us from time to time and that he accomplished the hard part which was getting that close in the first place to 3 mature birds!  It was indeed a successful hunt as he is excited about regular season coming up on the 20th.  And really, how can having 3 toms strutting at 20 yards ever be described as being unsuccessful?