Special

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For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to Him, and to keep His commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess. Deuteronomy 30:16

Spring 2020

The ride through the pre-dawn darkness was quiet. Naturally, my dad and I have been very fortunate to be able to hunt together a good deal over the years, and this was normal for our morning commute. To be direct, I am not a morning talker, and, aside from some passing remarks about the weather or other comments that warrant very little response on my part, he always cordially yields to my desire to avoid unnecessary conversation. “He’s always this talkative in the morning.” my dad told her ribbingly. “Oh, trust me, I’m aware!” she replied. It takes me a while to gather my thoughts and ‘get it in gear’ first thing in the morning- always has. I have, however, always loved that time of day, mind clear of the history of yesterday, focused only on what lies ahead and what today may bring. Why clutter a clear mind with unnecessary conversation? 

The morning prior we found a couple of turkeys gobbling well after fly down time, but another hunter had beaten us to them. We used sound etiquette, yielded to the other hunter, and left the area, but not before getting a good fix on the position of the gobbling turkeys prior to departure. My wife had mentioned casually during a passing conversation or two that she might like to go one day just to see what “it” was all about. The next day (this morning) was her birthday, and my dad and I decided that this would be the ideal time and the ideal place to bring her if we could get here early enough to beat the crowd. With a most gracious babysitter in place seeing after our, then, nine-month-old, the stage was set.

We arrived at our parking spot long before the dark began to exit the morning sky. The coffee had finally stoked the fire enough to get my internal engine moving for the day. “Yesterday morning he was about half a mile right through there.” I told her pointing into the darkness through the woods toward the location of a point that I had dropped on the map on my cell phone marking the turkey’s location the morning before. We were parked facing west on the shoulder of an exquisitely manicured woods road that ran, more or less, due east and west for close to three miles from one ending “T” to the other. The turkey’s location the morning prior was down the road ahead of us another half mile or so and a hundred and fifty to two hundred yards into the woods to the north of the road.

The giant mature loblolly pine “seed tree” overstory had succeeded in creating what had become a two-aged stand by method of natural regeneration some years back. The midstory pine stems, densely scattered beneath, ranged anywhere from the size of a broom handle to the size of your average cantaloupe in diameter at breast height; with sparsely scattered thickets of sweetgum blotching the landscape, and a mixture of freshly greened honeysuckle, smilax, and rubus vine sprouts covering much of the understory. A light rain during the night had dampened the forest floor which was covered mostly by pine straw and would make the walk quieter than walking sock footed across a damp sponge, save breaking one of the plentiful sticks along the way in topography that was flat to gently rolling.

We exited the truck as the slowly gathering daylight began to reveal the cloud-cloaked morning sky. Chatter from a choir of several different early-to-rise bird species in the surrounding environs drowned the silence and served as the opening act for what we all hoped was soon to come. Standing quietly in the woods road, we were quickly greeted by a cloud of biting gnats that seemed to have divided forces into individual squadrons that had been specifically assigned to each of the three of us. I walked to the rear driver door of the truck to retrieve the small bottle of insect spray from my vest. I gave it to her with instructions to apply to the ears, neck, and back of the hands to ward off the uninvited guests. I did not mind the gnats too much and would rather slap and swat than live with the smell of the spray, but I knew this would be a bad way to start her morning if something was not done soon to invite some relief. 

With a victory over the gnats in the bag, we returned to our posts to listen for our opponent to get his morning started. Not long after refocusing our attention, the call from the first crow pieced the calm morning air and was immediately rewarded with a gobble from exactly where we had most of our attention focused. “There he is!” and, instantly, all three of us were in motion donning gloves, loading guns, and making last minute adjustments before we began our walk. 

The turkey continued to gobble regularly as we walked westward up the road ahead of where we parked for a quarter mile, or so, careful to restrict our steps to the pine straw that covered the shoulder of the road to muffle the sound of the gravel beneath. We reached a good opening in the understory, free of the heavy cover of vines and pine saplings that covered other parts of the stand and turned our heading to the north toward the location of the roosted gobbler. The turkey was in the tree close to two hundred yards from the road and gobbling at a steady pace now. 

I walked in the point position, as we picked our way quietly toward the turkey for about another fifty yards where we stopped to get a better bearing. Without persuasion, the turkey gobbled, and we very quickly realized that we were getting too close to allow for many additional maneuvers. I changed our course to the left to take an angle paralleling the turkey’s position in an effort to get around on the west side of the gobbler in the tree. Being on the west side of the turkey was particularly important to me, because I knew that he had been approached and called to by another hunter from the east side just the day before. I did not know how that meeting had ended, but if this was that same turkey, I did not want him to have any reservations with regards to approaching our setup that may have stemmed from his experience with the other hunter the morning prior. 

We circled carefully until reaching a point to the west-southwest and somewhere between a hundred and a hundred twenty yards from the turkey who was still on the roost and gobbling well. We found an area that was open enough to allow a clear visual of most of a forty-five-degree area in the direction of the gobbling turkey with a sweetgum thicket about the size of two full-sized pickup trucks on one side. I found a tree for she and I that placed the gum thicket between our position and the turkey, hoping to force him to come around one side of the thicket or the other to get his eyes on the location of the calling which would, hopefully, put him in gun range. The big pine was as wide or wider than the two of us sitting shoulder to shoulder. With my back against the tree facing the turkey, just off my right shoulder was a fallen pine limb with the needles still hanging, propped against the trunk extending to above head high.

She is left-handed, so I sat her down next to the tree putting the gobbler at about her one o’clock. As she sat, I extended her the gun. “No.” she said firmly. “I just want to watch.” I knew this up front, but I thought maybe if presented with the opportunity at the last minute in the heat of the moment she may accept. She did not. With no time to argue, I instructed her to move around the tree and against the fallen limb. She stood, quietly adjusted her position around against the fallen limb, and settled in. My dad found a tree twenty yards or so behind us that afforded him a good position to guard the six. We had a top notch hide. 

When the turkey gobbled for the first time after we found our seats, I could clearly tell he had flown down. “He’s on the ground.” I whispered to her “About a hundred yards or so right down my gun barrel.” The turkey gobbled another time or two and I called softly for the first time. He answered. I quickly answered him back, and he answered again. He and I conversed back and forth over the next two or three minutes, and he was quick to answer nearly anything I offered. During all of this we noticed another turkey gobbling that was over my left shoulder, back to the northwest, and probably two hundred fifty yards from our position. This turkey continued to gobble sparingly and sounded to be making tracks slowly toward the gobbler to our front. 

The turkey we were setup on had been on the ground for between five and ten minutes and was still very near the spot where he had flown down. I answered his next gobble with a cluck and a soft yelp which he quickly answered back, and then I proceeded to “lay it on pretty thick.” By the end of my sequence of calls the turkey had triple gobbled. My response was to hush altogether. Over the next three or four minutes he gobbled another five or six times, then he eventually went quiet, as well. “Why did he stop gobbling?” she asked. “He may be coming,” I said, “be real still.” Another minute or two passed, and we both heard it at the same time- Pftoooooooom! “Was that him!?!?!” she whispered excitedly. “YES! That was him!” I said. “He can’t be over forty yards just on the other side of that thicket. Be real still!” I repeated. “I am not moving!” she replied disconcertedly. Having played guide to a long list of hunters over the years, some of whom are experienced turkey hunters, some of whom have killed a handful of turkeys, and some of whom had their closest encounter with a turkey while shopping in the meat department of the supermarket, I have developed the habit of repeating “BE STILL” to whomever I happen to be sharing a tree with at the time. Regardless of how still they are engaged in being at that moment- if my mind is telling me, then I am telling them. 

We heard him drum another two or three times which, although hard to course, did not reveal that the turkey was getting any closer. The next time we heard the drumming it was fainter than before. “He’s moving back to the left.” She said instantly classifying the sound and the increased faintness. Knowing all too well that her hearing was very likely far better than mine, having not been subjected to near the amount of gunfire that mine had to that point, my mind trusted her judgement, however, I could not convince my conscience that she was right about the turkey’s movement. I had in my mind that the turkey was going to come around the right side of the sweetgum thicket, so, naturally, that is where most of my attention was wanting to focus- even though she was telling me otherwise. “He could pop up anywhere, just keep watching for him, and be still.” I said. “I am not moving!” She was quick to repeat. 

She was right. After straining to see through the right side of the sweetgum thicket for what seemed like an hour- probably about three minutes, he gobbled again and sure enough he had moved around to our left and was back out around eighty yards or so. “Will he come back?” She asked. Fearing that he was in route to square off with the other approaching gobbler, I offered a cluck and yelp in response to his gobble and he immediately answered back. I repeated, and he cut me off this time. “Yea, I think so.” I said, hopeful that I was right. 

A couple of minutes passed, and he gobbled again and had moved back to the right but was still around eighty yards from our position. The next time two times he gobbled I cut off the end of his gobble with a soft three note yelp, both times. This seems to allow the turkey to hear your call somewhat but, being covered mostly by the sound of their gobble, they don’t seem to be able to make a good judgement of the distance or exact location that the yelping is coming from. This has proven more than once to be a tactic has worked for me in the past on some of those turkeys who come to a point, draw a line the sand, and will not cross. The turkey hushed. Within another minute or two, the rain that we knew was eventually coming started to trickle in. I knew this would likely either completely shut him down or potentially cause him to make his mind up to come pick up this new hen before she ‘got out of the notion’. I liked our odds having had much of his attention since his feet hit the ground nearly fifteen minutes before. 

A couple more minutes passed, and the clouds began to furnish a steadier sprinkle around our position. Without warning and unprovoked, the turkey gobbled so loud we could nearly smell his breath. Both of us immediately uttered “Oh my gosh!” simultaneously, and I adjusted to the right and trained the barrel of my shotgun toward the location of the gobble near the right edge of the sweetgum thicket where I had expected him to emerge a few minutes prior. “Be still now, he can probably see us from where he’s standing, so don’t move.” I told her almost subconsciously. “I am.” She replied with obviously growing anticipation. 

During our time listening to the turkey the morning prior my dad and I both had noticed that he had a very distinct gobble- different from what is typical of  most easterns. He seemed to separate the notes of his gobble more than normal. As a result, I had in the back of my mind that this was possibly a jake, so I kept telling myself as I waited for him to break into an opening to make sure that he was, in fact, an adult gobbler before I pulled the trigger. Within another twenty seconds or so the gobbler appeared through the understory. “There he is!” I told her. “To the right of my gun barrel!” The turkey had evidently stopped just out of sight from our position to perform his pre-approach assessment of the area around our setup and solidified in his mind that all was safe. This was made obvious by the alarming pace at which he made his approach, never a pause for concern. His long beard was bouncing off his big barrel chest as he walked, removing all doubts around the status of his maturity. “I can’t see him yet.” She said. Her seeing the turkey alive at very minimum for a few seconds before I pulled the trigger was very important to me. “Right here!” I pointed the pinky finger of my trigger hand to my 2 o’clock toward the turkey who was in a walk nearly fast enough to be called a trot, twenty-five steps and closing fast. “Oh! I see him!!!” She said excitedly. 

With all eyes now on the still quickly approaching gobbler, I had a twenty- or thirty-degree correction to make with my gun barrel to put sights on target. While the turkey was still in a steady walk directly toward our tree, I decided to make my move. He immediately picked up the movement and turned a quick one-eighty and was beginning his retreat by the time my sights aligned with his neck as he re-approached the twenty-three-yard line. I leaned out slightly to the left to clear my shot of a small sapling, and the next step he took was his last. 

I am thankful for many, many things in this life. I am thankful for this bird, I am thankful for my dad who raised me to turkey hunt the right way, I am so thankful every time The Lord allows me to see this, one of the greatest shows that His outdoors has to offer, and I am quick to thank Him almost immediately afterwards each time. I have been a part of some firsts during my time in the lineup, and my dad has been a part of a multitude. Each and every single one of them is always unique and always very special. With a flopping gobbler by the neck, I turned to look back at her reaction as she and my dad approached carefully to enjoy the moment with me, big smiles as they arrived. Nearly overcome by emotion, I reached out for a hug, and as we embraced she said, “I get it. This is very special.” She may never know how right she was.