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| Beretta ES-100 |
Everybody, I mean everybody, was walking down along the old logging road to the edge of the corn field whispering, carry decoys and shot guns, all heading to what looked like to me the same spot. I was in the back of the line excited to be there, but wary of this gaggle of turkey hunters trying to be sneaky. Ahead, I could see our gang leader pointing out over the fields where he thought others ought to go...and all around, we began to hear gobbles. Bona-fide evidence that we were on the right track.
When it's still dark in the morning, and you hear that Turkey announce to the world that he's up and ready for love, it completely shakes the drowsy stare-at-your-feet feeling you've had since you hit the snooze button an hour ago. Suddenly, you're on the hunt!
I was following the double column, second to last and beside (not my) Cousin Bill. The whole march, I was dreading trying to blend in among four other hunters when just then, over my right shoulder, I heard a gobble further away near where the flood plain of the Dan River stops, and the hardwoods begin.
Cousin Bill heard it too and we both paused. I looked forward at the group and shook my head. "I'm going that way," I whispered.
"You know what you're doing?" Cousin Bill asked.
That threw me. I had just bought a call the day before. Sure, I was carrying the tried and trusted Beretta ES 100 from the five minute Turkey Hunt of last year's season, but I was missing something: my teacher J.B. I'd tucked my self so far under his wing, under his natural ability to sweet talk Turkeys that I had never walked the walk, or talked the (Turkey) talk myself. I'd never uttered a cluck on my own in the woods in my life!
"You know what you're doing?" Cousin Bill had asked.
I grinned and shook my head. "No," I said.
I could see his return grin, even in the growing grey light, and I could see the urge to go with me flicker in his eyes but only for a moment before he waved and headed off with the others. I turned around and headed towards the gobble.
Now, alone on the logging trail, I looked down to see petrified in the dried mud of the road bed the tell tale tracks, the miniature T-Rex footprints, that let you know that at least a few times before, Turkeys had wandered by on there way from the woods to the corn field...and I was hoping to bury myself out of sight and catch a Tom doing just that.
I crouch over and schlep over to the edge of this little natural clearing just off the logging road and barely out of sight of everyone's trucks. I mean, it's a used truck lot just over the rise to my east. I sit down in what used to be a mud hole but now, thanks to what our local whiz-kid "meteorologists" are already calling a drought after only ten days of no rain, is just a damp spot of stinky, sticky black dirt and algae. The Tom's calls seem rather close, and I know if he sees me it's over.
And then I do it. I pull out the slate call I bought just yesterday, tilt the stick a tad, and cluck for the first time ever on my own in the woods. Behind me through the low scrub trees tens of yards deep, the gobbles continue and the cackling hens holler as well, but I am only listening to the gobble just ahead of me and up the hill. He hollers back and I just know, at any moment, I'll have him coming down the mountain and strutting around the bend to me. Only that doesn't happen.
He keeps gobbling, not walking. It doesn't sound like he's going anywhere. Or sometimes, I imagine he's actually further away. I fret and fret and finally get up to move closer to him. Of course, I don't know if this is proper procedure or not, but it feels right.
And see, that's something about hunting I rarely seen written about, or discussed. But sometimes, when you go hunting, you pick out an area, sit in a spot or make a stand because the time and the place just feels right. And more often than not, it ends up paying off. Even fishing, you just get that hunch, that under that branch is the Crappie hole you've been searching for.
Just as sure as lining up with four other guys to hunt didn't feel right at that moment, getting up out of my stinky mud hole and moving closer to that Tom in the tree seemed like exactly the right thing to do. This time I plop down in some wet grass, sun behind me, as it's fixing to pop over the hill and I figure I'll be back lit which will make me too easy to see, or harder to see by some poor turkey looking up into the sun. I'm not sure which, but I'm hoping for the latter.
This whole time, he's been good enough to gobble, and I'm coquettish enough to cluck back. After all, I am trying to convince him I'm a hot and bothered hen....likewise however, he's a proud male trying to convince me that he's worthy of my time and that I should hoof it to him. And in a way I am...I just can't be seen. I mean, I don't look a thing like a hot hen Turkey.
Here, we continue our chat until about the time the sun's come up over the hill, colouring the trees and grass around me back from that early grey to bright green, and casting long shadows pointing south west. I can see the shadow of my hooded head. I'd forgotten a hat and was breathing through a borrowed camo mask...borrowed from a smoker--borrowed from a smoker who apparently never bothers to take the mask off when imbibing. Anyway, about that time, Tom had stopped talking to me.
So the sun's up, and in the hunting business, the show's usually over about mid-morning. Is that always the case? No, of course not, nothing's always true out in the woods, but I start to figure on another hour maybe left of good hunting--after that, for me, good hunting would turn into sheer dumb luck (which I'll take any day). Fretting a little more, and giving up on calling, I post a facebook status and get up to move again.
This time, I go to the hill. I decide to stay on the shady side, halfway up, with a panoramic view of the creek bed and hardwoods that grow there. Now, despite the fact that the Turkey stopped talking, this really does feel like a good spot to be.
After the move, I can't take the cigarette-scented face mask anymore, so I pull it off. My nose has been running too, so I make a mental note to tell Anthony that he better wash it before he uses it again! Also, I take my camo-ed gloves off and I use the call the way I was taught. If J.B. taught me anything, it's "less is more" when it comes to calling Turkeys.
A couple of "bok boks" and I set the thing down and watched. I've seen J.B. conjure a bird in the middle of the day--way past prime time--with just a single cluck and 20 minutes time. At that point in the day, my stomach was growling so loudly (as it was way past lunch time too), I'm surprised it didn't scare the bird away. So I just copied the master.
Suddenly, some deer popped over the rise from the scrubby flood plain! Three of them. I gave them a taste of the call to see what they'd do. They looked in my direction unexcited and casually sauntered off. At first, the lead one's wagging ear had freaked me out into thinking it was a flapping hen's wing so incredibly, I was a bit disappointed when I saw they were "just" plain ol' deer.
A few minutes later and I tried another curt "bok bok bok". Off in the distance I could hear shooting...multiple shots and happily cursed the others as I imagined they'd whacked 'em and stacked 'em like cord wood. I was alone on the hill trying to stay still, trying to stay off my phone and onto the task at hand. Every five minutes I'd will my self to sit another five minutes. I was getting done. Without the feedback of a gobble, there wasn't much holding me to that spot. It was like fishing without getting a bite after a few minutes.
And then, right where the deer had appeared, another ear flap? Oh no, not this time, it was a Turkey! That much I could see even at that distance. It took a while longer to make out that it was a Tom, but I didn't need to know he was a Tom to get that rise you only get when something you want to shoot and kill walks out in front of you. Soon I could see the "beard" and enjoyed the heart pounding and tunnel vision I always get at moments like that.
Now calling is not an option. The slightest movement would alert him and send him in the opposite direction. You know they can see extremely well and are very wary of their surroundings. In fact, he looked right at my moon face, white hands at least once, but paid them no heed. The sun was behind me glaring down in his face giving me an edge.
He crept closer and closer with purpose. Every time he passed behind a tree, I'd shift my shotgun higher to my shoulder. I'd twist left and have the true-glo bead on him when he'd come out the other side. All I needed was to breathe, calm down, and wait for him to get within 35 yards. And when he did, the Beretta did the rest.
A three inch shell only pats your shoulder when you're hunting. At the patterning board, it rattles your teeth and your friends laugh at you.
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| The other star is my Beretta ES 100 12 gauge. |
He kicked over dying and I had just "bagged" my first solo Turkey! Such a relief as the pent up anxiety rushes out of you and leaves a euphoria that's hard to describe. I wanted to shout aloud, I wanted to call J.B. and tell him what he'd done, but I knew he was probably still hunting. I gathered up my strewn gloves and stinky mask and fairly trotted down the hill to see my Turkey. And there he was. I watched as he exhaled his last breath and I smoothed down his ruffled feathers and just looked into his iridescent colours and felt bad, and good, all at the same time.
I had done it. I'd like to say on my own, but that's not really the case of course. I had hunted with the iceberg's tip of craft J.B. had taught me when he'd taken me hunting the last four years or so. I was hunting on land that one of the four guys still down on the edge of the cornfield manages and invites us all to hunt there. It would have been nearly impossible for me to have harvested a Turkey without all of that help.
I carried him back to the used truck lot and put him on the tail gate and waited for the other guys to bring theirs in. There had been at least four shots so I expected to see happier than usual faces with more Turkeys, but I didn't. One of the guys had had a little trouble and had done all the shooting.
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| I forgot to cut the beard off of him. Almost ten inches! |
Before they came up and out, Tay, the host, had called me and asked, "Did you get one?" and I had the head-swelling pleasure of saying, "Oh yeah!" over the phone. I don't get many moments like that, I reckon not many of us do, so I enjoyed it to the fullest.
I took to wearing a tail feather or two in my hair that morning too and still fancy it. A tiny trophy and throwback to a simpler time, but it'll probably have to come out before the soccer game this afternoon, but I would love to wear it all day, all the time, and would love to retell the tale about how I got my first Turkey of 2012 all by my lonesome.
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| Would wear it all the time if I could get away with it! |
