An Uncooperative Longbeard

The first half of each spring season has more the feel of a detailed scouting walk then actual hunts. What I mean by this is many of the early season hunts are more learning experiences then shooting events. The set-up is different than originally scouted; the birds move in from the left end of the field and not the center; the birds were just passing through on their way to better feeding and no longer hang out in this patch of woods. In short, early on in the season I seem to get it all wrong.

By the time the turkey’s habits and patterns (if you can call them habits and patterns) are teased out from the general randomness of these critters, they all go quiet. What is certain is the gobbling which began in the trees and worked its way with the toms to the ground has been reduced to tree gobbling only. Once the feet begin making tracks the gobbling stops. Within a week the birds aren’t even gobbling in the trees anymore. Why and how every bird within hearing distance stops making a sound is flummoxing and a bit amazing.  I can understand or at least get my head around birds in a particular location staying silent but not everything in a particular valley or ridgeline. You’d think some ambitious jake who has yet to see any hen action would sound off.

By the second week of the season my hunting has been pretty repetitive. Find a good bow friendly spot (enough room to draw the bow with enough cover to hide the movement) and arrive by 4:30. Set some dekes at 15 and another at 20 yards from the sit. Now my ranges are known. When the time on my watch can be seen without the backlight or when there have been a few consistent gobbles I begin calling. A few soft clucks and maybe a quiet yelp or two. If there is a response to the calls my reply will have a bit more volume and slightly quicker tempo. The extra volume and tempo are how I try to sound “excited and willing” but for all I know my up-tempo and louder calling might be telling the toms to run. After an hour with no action boredom sets in and my legs are slightly numb from sitting for the past 90 minutes. Time for a walkabout to spy a few fields and head back to the house to schedule domestic chores and get off to work. All in all, my hunts have been a nice walk in the morning.

The third Saturday of the season and Nate, my 11 y.o. son, asks to tag along. We repeat the afore mentioned scenario and head back towards home by skirting a swamp. The bugs have yet to hatch and the leaves are just beyond swelled buds. The sightlines through the woods are still long. Soon the understory will occlude the waist to head height views and the ferns will block seeing anything not taller then a grown man’s knees.

Just as we cross the brook I take a quick look around. “Nate, is that a bear?” My finger directs his gaze to a large black lump about 100 yards to the north.

“I don’t think so it looks like a stump.” Then it moves revealing the orange radio collar as the black lump transforms into a black bear. “Oh yea, it’s a bear. What to we do?”

“Just look for cubs and if there aren’t any we should be fine. I don’t think it knows we’re here.”

No cubs so we watch the bear sit and look around before continuing its walk. It moves north, we head home to the south. This was the first bear Nate has ever seen while spending time in the woods. The sighting made the hunt a worthwhile adventure.

After a late morning lunch there are still three hours available to chase turkeys. Trigger time in Vermont is half an hour before sunrise until noon. I’m not too hopeful about finding a late morning tom. The woods have been devoid of turkey calls and my chances of interacting with a tom will be more random luck then echo location.

The three-mile walk on logging roads is a long loop through a stand of about 1,000 acres. Most of it isn’t accessible by vehicles. The sun is bright and the temps are in the mid 40s. My walk consists of moving a few hundred yards until I find decent cover and use the JL boxcall to send a few yelps into the woods. If nothing calls back after a minute or two I keep moving. For the next 90 minutes this pattern is repeated with each calling session slightly less enthusiastic.

Eventually boredom sets in and rather then stop I begin using the scratchbox to play the lead as I cover classic 70’s rock anthems like Led Zepplin’s “Stairway to Heaven;”

 AC/DC’s “Back in Black;” and Kiss “Detroit Rock City.” Still no response from the toms but I really don’t care. I’m tired and hungry.

JL Custom Turkey Calls packages its calls with a basic instruction sheet on reproducing clucks, purrs, yelps, cuts and using a rubber band to center the lid to reproduce a gobble. To gobble with the box call the band holds the paddle to the box and applies light pressure. Next,  the caller either holds the box or paddle while repeatedly shaking the call. The gobble imitation is pretty good. The logging road drops between a large hill and small knoll just a bit longer than ½ mile from home. With no fear of chasing anything off my boxcall gobbling becomes a competition between holding the padle and shaking the box or holding the box and shaking the paddle.

The experiment has been going almost nonstop for two or three minutes when the woods exploded with a loud and presumably close gobble emanating from an actual turkey. I froze to look around and carefully placed the boxcall into my pocket. The bow carry sling was still attached and was removed as I scanned the terrain for a hiding spot. There was none so I scrambles a few yards off the road and gained a few yards of elevation putting me dead level with the top of the knoll. The hillside was steep enough for me to sit or almost lean against and the hemlock branches were far enough above me as to not interfere with the bow.

Dumb luck had a mouth call set like a good jag of chew between my left cheek and gums. The scare of jumping a close tom and sending him packing dried my mouth and the call stuck to my tongue. Another old logging road moved up the hill to the left and the well traveled logging road had three nice shooting lanes with drawing cover radiating from my location.

My first attempt at a yelp to assist the still hidden bird in locating the invading tom and his date was a complete bust. It wasn’t a yelp but more of a raspy choke. The tom bit hard and responded with a harsh gobble which came from the end of the knoll.

The top of his fan breached the edge of the knoll and the bird stepped onto the road in full strut.  Unfortunately there was no shot.  Most of the tom was behind a network of low hobblebush and broken pine limbs. Not certain and arrow would make it through I sucked on my tongue trying to pull up a bit of moisture to release the call reeds.

When the tom spun to display I caught sight of the beard and spurs (6-8” rope with 1”  hooks). The release was set into the D-loop and the bow set vertically resting one cam on my thigh. The shooting lanes were separated by large hemlocks and would provide good cover to draw the bow.  While the tom was looking away I managed a quiet ”come hither” cluck intending to move the bird  two feet and into the road. His fan fell and wings retracted to his body. The bird moved up the knoll through the underbrush and began scanning the hillside for this elusive hen.

The tom is only twenty yards afar and shooting it is a dead level chip shot with one problem. There is an awning of branches across the road low enough to interfere with the arcing flight of the arrow. I still have no shot so time to sit and wait for the bird to leave the knoll and head up the hill to find this seductive hen.

In Tom Kelly’s book,  “A Fork in the Road,” the master recommends setting up so the hunter has a clear view of any road and to establish a spot to have a shot into both roads at any intersection. But dumb luck I have this and it should only be a matter of time before I can verify Mr. Kelly’s wisdom.

The longish beard gobbles and struts on the top of the knoll. He has center stage and puts on a fantastic show. The turkey is close enough I can hear the fan pop open and wingtips tickle the leaves. After each strutting event, the bird preens itself and the shaking feathers leave a rustling sound in the late morning air.

When the bird turns his back I can glance at the watch on my release hand. The small bumps of rock and forest floor debris which I hadn’t noticed when I scrambled in, now pressure my rear end in a rather uncomfortable way. I’ve been sitting motionless for thirty minutes. The arrogance of the tom expecting the hen to some to him is second in amazement to his ability to just sit and wait. As the pain in my butt grew, my patients thinned.

At forty-five minutes the bird descended the knoll back towards the logging road. Each step closer to the road kicked my heart rate back up a notch. My thumb felt for the hook of the release to be sure the D-loop was still engaged. In season’s past, I rushed the shot by skipping the waypoints of the shot process causing the arrow to miss the target. .As the tom stepped up to the first 25 yard shooting lane I ran through the shot checklist: Anchor at the jaw; curl the finger over the trigger to the last knuckle; elbow in line with the arrow flight; align the sight housing and peep; lower the elbow to release the shot.

The two logging roads came together at a very acute angle on the steep hillside. The space between the roads was occupied by a band of  incompetent rock and broken stone. Which I knew was there but was unable to see from my current position.  Given the choice between scaling the fragmented defile of broken and crumbly rock or an easy stroll up a fairly well defined and graded road, the choice, for a human, is a no brainer. The easy footing of the road wins. For a strutting tom turkey showing off to a sexy hen, only the miserable path will enhance his aversion to danger.  The bird managed to skirt the easy shot and remained out of view only giving away his position by gobbling at the top of the rise. “Rats!” was my audible reaction (we all know it wasn’t rats). Was I busted and the bird was toying with me? Was the bird in need of a bit of dangerous fun hence it scaled the path of most resistance? Doesn’t matter. My shot opportunity was gone.

I snuck up the hill scratching away the leaves hoping to imitate a love struck hen chasing the masculine hunk up the hill and cover my moves. The bird stayed forty yards ahead of me gobbling at every bench in the terrain. At noon, the end of legal trigger time, I looked up to see the tom backlit by the sun. His red waddles made transparent by the strong noontime light. The body a silhouette with one wing extended while the arching middle feather displayed in my direction.