If you didn’t harvest a wild turkey this spring, chances are you are already counting down the days until the next hunting season.
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| Bob Chapin |
By scouting I mean you know for a fact that turkeys are in a particular piece of wooded terrain because you have “roosted them” there either at dawn or at dusk or what is referred to as the crepuscular hours. Go just before sunrise or just at sunset when they “fly up or down” from trees where they safely spend the night away from their many natural predators. In the spring the males or gobblers want to be close by the females or hens often roosting in the same or nearby trees. When they fly down at daybreak the gobblers already know approximately where the hens are.
Gobblers are very vocal and often gobble when they go to roost and gobble again in the morning before flying down. Gobbling is both a social communication, and in the spring, an announcement that they are ready to breed. Usually only the largest, oldest gobblers actually do the breeding, and they fight off the younger birds to keep that right. But like teenaged boys that doesn’t keep the younger males or Jakes from trying.
This year I had the opportunity to do sufficient early season scouting which meant several early morning get-ups which paid off as I confirmed the presence of one or more gobblers in the area I had to hunt. Early in the season I positioned myself off a logging road on a small plateau. I set up my decoys – two hen decoys and a small Jake decoy. The big boys cannot stand it when they think a youngster is moving in on what they consider their territory.
There are several schools of thought on how many of what kind of decoy you should use, and I’ve tried them all and they all work, sometimes. This year since I was hunting a smaller clearing in the woods and I limited myself to three. Some guys use only one. In a large field with great visibility in several directions I’ve used as many as eight including a large strutting gobbler. You may run the risk of intimidating potential suitors who would make a fine harvestable bird, but they are visible from a long way off and will often pull in hopeful males if you have a crowd of decoys.
It did not take long after 4:30 a.m. for the first couple of turkeys to sound off. The good thing about male turkeys is that if one sounds off the rest within hearing feel compelled to answer so it is not unusual to have turkeys gobbling in several quadrants at once. Sometimes you can tell you have more than one turkey approaching because they walk on each other’s calls. Several times I have had groups of three to four gobblers walk in together as they like to associate with other males despite the competition at the end.
I knew there were at least two gobblers approaching me from the overlapping gobbles they made. Unfortunately, they came in behind the tree I was sitting against, so I was unable to see them. You draw them to you by making sounds on calls designed to sound like hens. The decoys are designed to seal the deal and keep them focused away from you. Once they are close you do not want to make any movements, not your feet, your head, your gun, not even your eyes as they will pick it up in a heartbeat and be gone before you can react.
Trying to snap shoot fleeing turkeys is a fool’s gambit. These two were close enough to me that I could hear them “spitting” as it is called. Not what you would think but more like “P-s-s-st.” I could hear their feet in the wet leaves they were that close…but still not in sight. I knew they could see my decoys, but maybe my Jake gave them pause. They walked behind my tree and off to my right. I figured that was the best chance I would have all morning, and I just blew it. There were other gobblers around, so I continued to purr and cluck as hens do.
Out of the corner of my right eye I saw movement that materialized as two fully fanned out birds headed for my decoys again. They were slightly downhill from me and low growing vegetation blocked all but the tops of their fans and heads. They hung up about 40 yards out and proceeded to “display” for my hens, turning in circles next to each other, one lower down the hill than the other. I decided that that was the best shot I was going to get so when the top one turned to face me. I put the bead right where his neck met his chest and touched off a shot.
I was not prepared for the recoil the 3 1/2 inch .12 Gauge TSS-Tungston Stainless Steel shell was going to give me, and it knocked me back against the tree I was sitting against. I was not able to see what had happened to the bird as I could not see him from my seated position and I thought I might have missed him. I needn’t have worried though.
Once I got myself composed and went to where he was there on the ground there was not one, but two turkeys, shot with one shot! One was 19 pounds and the other turned out to be 21 pounds.
Fortunately, I was in a game management unit that permits two bearded turkeys in the spring season. My season was over in one shot, but a good season it was. How was yours? <
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