Me and Mr. Murphy and the turkeys

Watching jakes is fun but watching adult gobblers is something special.

 

Remember Murphy's Law? I wrote about it a week or so ago.

This quirky rule states that when hunting wild turkeys, if anything can go wrong, it will. Yesterday's hunt could serve as a great example.

It had rained a bit during the night, the skies were overcast, it was darker than the inside of a black cat, and I was walking across an open field on my way to a wooded ridge line. I woke up at 4:45 a.m., and not wanting to wake my wife, I fumbled in the closet for some pants and a shirt. I grabbed some jeans, pulled on a shirt and some sox, went out and got the newspaper, came back inside and dressed for the hunt.

Oops! Something was wrong.

 

I was midway across the field when it became obvious that I'd pulled on some jeans that were really too loose. I seldom wear a belt, but with every step, it was becoming more of an issue about my britches. I was 100 yards from my destination when I finally had to stop.

My trousers, underneath my rain gear, were down around my knees, and I was walking like a waddling duck. It may have been more meaningful if I hadn't been wearing rain pants, and if it hadn't been dark. I laid down the decoys and my Remington 870 pump shotgun, unhitched my rain gear, dropped those pants, pulled up my jeans, got an owl hoot (perhaps by an all-seeing owl), and continued on to my hunting spot.

The shame of it all. My unintentional strip tease in the misty rain seemed to set the stage for things yet to come. A quarter-mile away, in the black stillness of night, I heard a turkey crash down off his roosting limb, and it was followed by strong wing beats fading away into the night. Apparently one unseen bird was frightened from his roost by a half-naked stranger.

That thought put a weird smile on my face.

Moving in where I'd roosted birds the night before.

 

I reached my naturally camouflaged blind, put my shotgun flat on the ground where I wouldn't knock it down while wiggling in among some tree trunks, and then returned to the field to set up the decoys. I'd killed gobblers here before, and knew where the birds would come from, and placed the decoys with the jake-fake 35 yards out in front of me and the hen decoys about 45 yards out. This should make any live gobbler walk out in front of me and produce a good shot.

I put down my butt pad, wiggled around like an old lady pulling on her girtle, balanced the shotgun across my knees, and dug out a slate and box call, and laid them on a brown wash cloth next to my left leg. I leaned back, comfortable, and remembered pulling up my drawers in the middle of the field. I guess you had to have been there to appreciate it.

Thirty minutes passed before the tweetie birds began talking, and the first crow of the day flew over, cawing like a mad man, when a gobbler sounded off with a distant gobble. Another bird, much closer and behind me, joined in with a deep rumbling gobble, that shook the early-morning stillness.

I sat still, my calls and shotgun at the ready, and waited. I didn't want to join this party just yet. I wanted to see how many birds were nearby. Within 15 minutes, I'd located five gobblers, and they were mixed in with several muttering hens.

I held off calling until all five gobblers were dialed in.

 

I rasped out a soft little yelp, one that seemed nearly impossible to hear, but the keen-eared gobblers caught the faint sound and all five tuned in. I wouldn't answer, and waited five more minutes until one love-sick gobbler couldn't take it anymore. He gobbled lustily, and I called softly again, and he cut me off with a roar. I returned the favor with another soft yelp, and suddenly all five gobblers were cranked up.

Each Tom called to me, and I teased each one in turn, and finally only two birds -- obviously both without a hen -- remained. All of this had taken up more than an hour, but the two birds were still interested in coming to visit. They came in behind and downhill from me, and were close enough to hear their spitting and drumming. I did a tiny J-stroke on the slate just as the skies opened up and the rain poured down. The monsoons had arrived.

That didn't deter them. If anything, it seemed to re-ignite their fire, and both birds shook the ground with their gobbles. My shotgun was to my shoulder and steady across my knees when I heard the snap of a semi-dry twig. I was expecting it, didn't move, and then the landowner came over the nearby ridge with his tractor and manure spreader, tossing turds out onto the ground.

A tracker and manure spreader spooked them and I didn't get a shot.

 

It was too much for the skittish gobblers. They apparently whirled around and hauled tail feathers for someplace else. Just that quick, what had been an entertaining day was wrecked by Mr. Murphy and his weird sense of humor. I never saw the birds nor did I hear any other gobbles after that.

I was soaked to the skin by the time I got home. No turkeys, no shots, but one interesting and rather funny day afield. I thought perhaps you might be interested in how Mr. Murphy messed up my hunt but he didn't ruin my day. There's more to turkey hunting than shooting one, and my experience yesterday is proof of that.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors