One of the last mornings greeted us with fog, drizzle, and cold. It generated mixed feelings. On one hand it was cold and damp with no hope in sight of relief or comfort. On the other hand, the moisture would dampen the forest floor and the litter upon it, our footsteps would be muffled and our movements hidden in the fog.
We moved out into the forest and in chopped, terse phrases rapidly sketched out a plan of attack. We chose to split our forces and take two routes in on the suspected enemy position. Both units would move independently and be autonomous scouts. Militarily, this is folly. But we were unlikely to run into return fire and need to call in reinforcements or backups. This was gonna be a turkey shoot!
Iowabow and kylewayne were going in with a small hook to the right, a more direct route at the position. I was to take a wide hook to the left, hustling over a more wide open ridgeline, but longer route in order to block their retreat deeper into the Black Hills National Forest. Our targeted victims had the advantage of being more mobile, with better knowledge of the terrain, and being in significantly better physical condition. But we had the brains. Ours approximately three pounds of reasoning, educated, adaptable logic! Theirs a mere ounce and a half of instinct and hormones, it was breeding season after all! REPEAT: A turkey shoot!
I broke left and moved out at a dogtrot, leaping downed ponderosa pines, dodging wet saplings ready to shower me with overnight rain, and gaining ground quickly. I soon picked up a well used deer trail that led me along a fence and up the ridgeline, avoiding the thickest brush and forest. I made excellent time and found myself in what I believed to be "the pocket". The pocket is that elusive final bit of territory on all sides of a turkey where you are close enough they can't ignore you, but far enough away and with sufficient cover between that they cannot make you out. But sunrise showed the enemy to have moved in the night, or possibly going to roost later than we believed after shifting position.
Not a problem, they were across a sharp hogback ridgeline of granite from me and I could pick up and hustle closer without fear of being seen. The hen was a miser with her calling, but giving up just enough to telegraph her position. I made the most of it and called very sparingly, just enough to guide me in like a laser locked smart bomb.
I had several setups as she moved her small flock around after flydown, feeding and breeding. I stayed in that 40 yard bubble as we moved and counter moved on each other. One single hen did the talking for the flock, but a gobbler would now and then chime in. They were crossing back and forth over the ridgeline as they wandered and sometimes on my side, but out of sight, sometimes on the other side and I could get a small saddle between us to make their path as easy as possible.
But she was a smart and dominant old matron. She kept her poultry platoon in tight formation with no stragglers or bunch quitters! She was a seasoned first sergeant keeping her butter bar lieutenant gobblers in check, safe as houses. I figured working the boys was off the table as a tactic, and went for her ego. If they wouldn't leave her for me, I would get her to come to me!
I stopped yelping and whining at the gobbler's odd rattling calls and instead cued off her every utterance. She'd yelp and I'd quickly jump in and interrupt her with a hotter yelp. A putt from her would get three putts from my calls, a series of yelps would have me shutting her down with a louder and hotter series. I was not letting her get a word in edgewise. If the gobblers were good men that were unwilling to cheat on her, I'd make myself out to be the nastiest skank in the woods and make her wanna run me off!
It got pretty raunchy in those woods, I threw out things from slate calls, box calls, and wingbone calls that no jake should ever hear! It was XXX calling at it's best! But DANG, she was stalwart prude. There was no getting her to come down off that high horse of hers and square off with me. We worked thru at least 5 set-ups where I would have a shot at under 20 yds if they only came around or thru a visual obstruction. Some of the screening cover was a curve in the rock wall of the ridgeline, sometimes a clump of doghair pines.
The last setup had them less than 20 yds away. Close enough that I could make out the sounds of the birds scratching in the pine duff searching for bugs, grubs, seeds and seedlings. I laughed to myself and thought, "fix bayonets, boys, let's charge them!" I decided to back it down to soft purring, clucking, and gentle flock talking like I was one of the crowd keeping in touch with the others. We'd pretty well used up all our moves in this "dance off", and my last option was to hope my feeding calls would make 'em think I had hit a pocket of extra tastey morsels. Maybe they would wander over to share in the bounty.
We held our individual positions for a good half hour. My heart and lungs recovered from exertions, allowing my brain to process better, to stop playing catch-up and start paying attention. The hen sounded good. True and blue, good variety of calls, all of them pretty realistic. But the Tom's call was beginning to unravel in my mind. It was a little high pitched. The rhythm was too quick and mechanical. More and more I began to pick it apart, to analyze it and find fault. I became convinced I had just worked a couple of turkey hunters into position and we had a stalemate!
We had a rock outcropping between us, and scooching back a little allowed me to stay even further back from an accidental shot to the face. The morning coffee was really kicking in and I stood, stretched and prevented forest fires in my immediate vicinity. But my sudden silence was stirring the other hunter's curiosity and they upped their call rate. I gathered my calls together in my belt pack, shifted my pack into position and readied to slip out safely without messing them up. But I couldn't resist a last parting call. Out came the purpleheart lidded box call and I hit it hard with that "shave and a haircut....TWO BITS" rhythm. I had done that earlier in the week when Iowabow and I had sneaked in and set up on Mikey and soy. It says "turkey hunter" to a human, but doesn't really spook a real bird. Great way to clear up any confusion between parties.
Silence. Just the dripping of rain off the ponderosas. The occasional 'yank yank yank' call of the nuthatches, and a pair of crows off in the distance haw-hawing over something they found funny. I could imagine two hunters leaning in to whisper, trying to figure what the heck they had just heard. Now, I knew it was not iowabow and kylewayne because neither was carrying a gobbler call, so this had to be some unknown party. I started to ease over the ridgeline quietly to put some distance between us. At the top, my boot slipped on a loose rock and it rolled off the ridge making a loud crash. My eye followed it and there was a shocking sight I had utterly dismissed as impossible.
Yup, boss hen was 15 yds away and she was followed by 4 red headed birds! Likely the gobble calling was only a jake, his voice not yet fully changed and into his sweet Irish tenor range. There I was, fully exposed for what I was....the invading enemy in the heart of their sovereign lands. Busted, busted fair, and it was all on my shoulders.
Later that same day, kylewayne and I got a set on some birds and again it was hens with jakes. We've had poor hatches the last few years and numbers are down. Shooting a 4 yr old bird is not going to change future populations, but popping a jake takes a breeder out of the equation for the next few years. Normally, a jake is not an unethical choice, but for now they are all getting a pass from me. I don't need to kill a bird at all costs. As much as I want the fletching, wingbones for calls, as well as a little tender stir fry gobbler, I want them around next year breeding the hens.
Yeah, I did it all perfectly. Located, set up, worked hard, good position, but in the end it was my overthinking that did me in. Maybe one of the gobblers was an adult and fair game, maybe not. By busting them, I lost the opportunity to find out for sure. Bested by a bird with a brain the size of a shelled pecan.....again. Like walking into a gunfight without even a knife.
