After yesterday's hunt and almost stepping on a nested hen, today's setup was another 250 yards closer to the ridge top. My spot, beneath a large hemlock and the open woods provided fantastic draw cover trees. The dekes were set out, arrow nocked, with calls set onto my leg for easy access it was time to start chalking the striking surfaces waiting for the sun to come up.
My go to chalk is plain old white, pencil diameter, blackboard sticks. It is inexpensive, easy to find, and stays together when tossed into my pocket. To my ear, the sound is just as good as railroad chalk and other call specific mixtures. With the chalk applied and put back into my pocket, there is nothing to do but enjoy the sounds of the forest transitioning from night to day. This is the most peaceful time of the day and one aspect of hat draws me to hunt turkeys.
GOBBLE, GOBBLE. The silence is broken before there is enough light to see the pins of my bowsight. Best guess, the bird is under 100 yards away. More gobbling and it sounds like three birds; even further up the ridge. RATS. Stuck in turkey hunting groundhog day. Different location, same scene. The birds keep gobbling while moving uphill. The calls are stowed in pockets while the decoys are pulled off the stakes and left in the bag under the hemlock which had been my hiding spot. Time to run and gun and with any luck get ahead of thee birds.
Following the slight draw in the terrain looking for a path even higher up the ridge the gobbling toms seem unaware of my presence. The draw pinches down and crosses a stone wall with a gate-sized opening.. Just beyond the wall is a clear stand of large (24"-36" diameter at breast height) oak trees filling a shelf twenty yards wide and fifty yards long with ample rock outcrops and a few hemlocks along the edge. Perfect set up if my luck runs out today.
A group of car sized honeysuckle bushes delineates the end of the shelf. No gobbling for a few minutes so I must have been busted so time to go explore where I am and scout the best way back for tomorrow morning's hunt. The honeysuckle explodes with gobbling. Rats, I'm stuck in no-man's land but manage to sneak in behind a rootstock surrounded by continuous gobbling. The hunt is on to tag on of the birds now called, The Gang of Three
A few clucks and a soft yelp on the scratchbox have all three birds gobbling over each other. I put the call down and wait. The gobbling is frantic and soon on of these birds has to come around the honeysuckle and take a look. I peer through a quarter sized hole in the root mess and see nothing. The gobbling is still frantic but growing softer.RATS! DOUBLE RATS! They are moving off.
Chasing them would be fun but having no specific idea where I am the decision is made to head home (have to get the kids off to school) and find a way back in for tomorrow's hunt. The stonewall at the top of the draw is a good handrail and is followed downhill. I should come across familiar terrain and the wall leads me to the northern end of the Field of Broken Dreams. Eureka! I know the path of the birds I keep encountering when set up in the FoBD. With this new discovery it is game on.
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| My deke set-up complete with draw tres. |
Tuesday, May 17
Walking into the bench setup is easy to navigate but physically demanding. The stonewall leaving FoBD runs straight up the fall line of the ridge. This time of May the morning temps are in the high 40s. A jacket keeps the cool air at bay but becomes too much when heading uphill. Cresting the last bit of hill before the bench has sweat running down my neck and forehead. Even though turkeys have no sense of smell, deer and other prey do. Too often I've been busted by these critters and they signal a warning and dash off through the woods.
The set up is ideal with great cover for me and the abundance of draw cover trees raises my hopes for a good day.
The transition from night to day goes by; enough light shows to see the pins of the sight; the red crest of the woodpecker is easy to see. The morning is here but where are the gobbles which have been so abundant for the past few days?
A few clucks on the scratch box followed by a soft yelp has lit these toms up but now; silence. Thirty minutes go by; silence. Calling produces no response and at 6:15 it is time to return home to bring the kids to school.
Following the stone wall back to the FoBD is awesome. I don't have to think allowing my brain to work overtime wondering what happened to the birds? I hang a right at the FoBD traversing the small patch of woods separating me from the ski trails and path home.
Years, maybe decades ago a large birch tree fell over coming to rest across a stone wall. This has become a marker for easy access to the trails. Just as I step onto the tree, a chorus of gobbling erupts from just over the rise twenty yards away. I'm downwind and the new leaves on the trees have been creating noise. Couple this with the leaves on the ground still wet from last evening's rain and I shouldn't have been busted. One large maple gives me draw cover as my butt settles into the rotted trunk of the birch.
An instant response to the tongue call so I put it down and raise my bow to lessen any movement when these eager birds jump the ridge to find the hen. The gobbling is intense and raspy. The Gang of Three getting all riled up vying for her attention. With no free hand to call with and the mouth calls still in my pocket there is only the wait and see game to play. My only other option is some form of bayonet charge hoping to surprise them. This desperate option is shelved. I sit on the log and wait.
The gobbles continue but grow quiet as they fade into the woods.
The woods are filled with my angst filled profanity and great restraint is required to put the bow down and not smash it on a tree before stoning the weapon with rocks from the wall.
My anger is not directed at the bow itself. The rig has performed flawlessly and is a joy to shoot. Me desire to kill the bow stems from removing any way to continue hunting. If the bow and other implements to kill turkeys is gone I cannot go anymore sparing me the agony of chasing birds.
Why, for the past five days have these birds been so close but have never been observed? My conclusion is they are not real but hallucinations fabricated by the end of season sleep deprivation. Maybe they are specters parading about as turkeys sent to the terrestrial plane by an evil demon whose mission is to impart insanity. I really want to curl into the fetal position, suck my thumb, and cry but the kids need to be at school in twenty minutes. My walk home will take twelve; changing clothes another five; the drive to school is another twelve. Guess they'll be late.
Delivering them to school late is fine; I just with it was for a good reason along the lines of limb hanging by spurs or from butchering one of these birds.
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| The Shelf |
Wednesday, May 18
Awakening at 4:05 gives respite after dreaming about the Gang of Three for most of the night. Not only do these birds haunt me in the woods, they have infested my subconscious eroding what little sleep I can muter at night. Exorcism will take place when an arrow finds its mark to kill one of the gobbling demons.
Not crushing the bow took great restraint and not being sure of my resolve to resist the urge my setup is long away from the Gang of Three territory. Even knowing the birds are there, a day of respite is in order.
The walk into the mess of blowdown where the first sit will take place is quiet. Ski trails deliver me 95% of the way which is relaxing without fear of getting poked in he face by a stick. The blowdowns provide cover and fantastic seating and not carrying a small folding chair is an additional relief to avoiding the Gang of Three.
When the pin of the sight is easily useful it is time to start calling. The first soft yelp on the tongue call garners a responsive gobble. Jut one gobble which is a relief. Had I heard three I'd have gone running back to the house with great fear of the woods possessed by the Gang of Three poltergeists. The gobble comes closer so the call is placed down on the poplar tree truck where I sit. Time to raise the bow and hook the release to the D-loop. My heart beat thumps in my neck.
PWOOF. A deer blows and runs away between me and the approaching tom. he woods are silent.
Figuring this tom encounter is done, I decide to leave the nest of blowdowns and head up the hill in an attempt to circle around the tom and call him in the opposite direction. The woods are drying but the leaves are not crisp and are rather quiet. TWenty minutes later places me 200 yards away from the blowdowns on the same contour. The scratchbox sends a few clucks and hard yelps into the woods. The response gobble sounds like it is 200 yards away on the same contour. RATS. The bird kept coming after the deer ran by.
Sitting in the young pines and calling has no effect on the tom as the gobbles just get quieter and quieter. 6:37 AM, time to head home and bring the kids to school.
Thursday, May 19
The nest of blowdowns is again the chosen spot. The woods are quiet. The only response is another hen yelping but it sounds like another human. I stop calling hoping to coattail and intercept and toms headed to my human counterpart. Nothin' doin'. The woods remain quiet. Soon I hear voices and two hunters appear thirty yards away. "Hello" I call.
"Hey, how's it going? Any luck?"
We exchange a few stories and I walk out to the fellow hunter's truck parked at the end of the road.
Friday, May 20
A 4:26 start back to the shelf and another shot at the Gang of Three begins the hunting day. By 4:48 my dekes are set and the single pin is bright enough to be useful. A few light clucks and yelps garners no response. At 5:50 the only noise in the woods are the calls of piliated woodpeckers and red squirrels so I head home with a plan to return with Nate and take another shot at tagging one of these birds.
Saturday, May 21
Nate and I are on the shelf by 5. We sit about thirty yards apart to cover the entire stand of oak trees. By 6, Nate has had enough sitting so we abandon the quiet and head home.
Nate is a good cook and puts together a feast of bacon, pancakes topped with pure Vermont maple syrup washed down by strong tea with milk and honey.
By 8 we're done cleaning up and preparing for a walk around the woods looking for birds. Sitting on the couch letting the food settle in Nate hears a faint gobble. We head to the porch and listen. Gobble, gobble. Sure enough there is a bird up behind the house looking for love. We get dressed and head back out.
Most of our road is an almost impassable jeep trail which goes straight up the hill through an old abandon orchard. We cut through the back of the property to the creek and almost step on another nesting hen 150 yards from the back door."Pretty cool, huh dad?"
"That is awesome. Let's stay away from here and let her alone to raise the poults."
Intercepting the road we gain a bit of elevation and jump onto an old logging road. The gobbling is louder so we set up in front of a large pine tree. Nate has his 20 ga. and I leave the bow on the leaf litter. This hunt is about him getting a bird. The tom responds to the clucks emanating from the scratch box. Each gobble louder then the one previous.
PWOOF. A deer blows from below us on the hill and runs past the approaching tom. We see the tom's red head tuck down and run away from our position.
"Awe man, that deer messed us up. We might have had that bird. What was it, 50 yards?"
"Something like that. Looks like it's not our year but seeing the nesting hens was pretty cool."
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| Nate hiding in the woods, the shelf is off to the right |
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| My spot about 50 yards south of Nate. |
Sunday, May 22
Rain at 4:10. I remained in bed.
Monday, May 23
With a delay in my workday start, my hunting day started after dropping the kids of at school. There are several great pieces of farmland which have birds and the daily requirement of being a chauffeur to the school has precluded my abilities to hunt them.
One of these fields is close to a mile in length, an anomaly here in Vermont. Several black dots populate the far end of the field and a quick scan with the binos reveals these dots are in fact, turkeys. A swamp borders the west edge of the field and is the best way to quickly cover the distance without getting busted. The birds are out of sight from the swamp and the chances of them moving on is pretty good but I take the risk and head off into the muck.
A swamp in Vermont is very different from a swamp in most areas south of here. There are no gators, water moccasins, rattlesnakes, or copperheads to contend with. No feral hogs or anything to watch out for so the movement is fast and carefree. Temps in the low 50s keep the bugs from becoming too bothersome. The most dangerous beast in the swamp is me.
The swamp is bordered by tall grasses and clumps of brush. Before entering the relatively open area abeam the flock I spend a few moments finding out if my run through the wet has been for naught. Jackpot! Three hens and two toms are 100 yards away. I belly crawl another twenty-five yards to a large swamp maple surrounded by what looks like pagoda dogwoods. Good cover for me and the bow.
200 yards set of me and 150 west of the birds there is movement in the calf length grasses. Two foxes are skulking towards the flock and with luck will spook them in my direction. From a kneeling position I arrange the calls and set the bow against the dogwood branches. Cluck, cluck, cluck, yelp-yelp-cluck, radiates from the scratchbox. The tom responds and turns his fan in my direction but does not gobble.
I send another call. The tom puffs up a little bigger. I change calls hoping to sounds like a mother-lode of hens. Both toms display and one gobbles. I hit the slate and the smaller tom starts coming my way. The chorus of yelping from the three hens stops him dead in his tracks. RATS. Henpecked so my job becomes tougher. Holding the scratchbox and a striker in my right hand with the tongue call in my left sets up the one-mand-band of hens. My mouth call putts and clucks, the scratchbox is played off the tongue, side and back of the tongue call and the handle of the striker making a wide range of hen voices while occupying just my hands. The movement from one surface to the other is almost seamless and has both toms attention. They move in my direction and are called back.
This rap-battle rages on for thirty minutes and the human ultimately loses. The hens walk away and the toms dutifully comply and fall into line. The foxes are nowhere to be seen.
Tossing in the white flag of surrender I head back to the car in the field and avoid the swamp. Temps have come up and the bugs just might be swarming.
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| 75 yards and no luck even as a one-man-band of hens |
Tuesday, May 24 through Tuesday, May 31
During the final week of the season I managed to get out four days. Memorial Day weekend was taken up by a soccer tournament (team did really well, competitive games and a must win to make the playdowns. We played to a draw but it didn't help). The other day the hunting was more or less sitting in the woods listening or taking a quick drive looking for birds in fields and trying to sneak up on them. No turkey sounds or field birds. Turning this nothing into a decent tale is well beyond my abilities to create an entertaining story about silence. Sure, I can become philosophical but that is not me.
The woods went quiet very early and I can only surmise it was the mild and almost snow-less winter. The snow and ice was melted away almost three weeks early and the grasses began to grow when the sun warmed the ground. The turkeys don't use a calendar and if conditions feel right to begin breeding they must get started.
This is the first season in a while without a bird inside shooting range. My ability to find turkeys is pretty good but my skills to bring them into bow range still needs work.
Overall the season was great. I spent a lot of days in the woods with friends and also my 12 year old son. I'd liked to have filled a tag but it didn't happen. 128 days until the fall season opens so I'll keep shooting the bow and count down the days.
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