I know it's still duck season, but I can talk about turkeys pretty much anytime and I'm bored. Tell me about your first turkey.
I actually have two.
My cousin and I both started hunting turkeys at the same time. We were both in our thirties before we started as we didn't have turkeys where we hunted before then. We didn't hunt together, but we hunted the same club so that first year we would meet after hunts and compare notes on who had made the most mistakes that day. By the end of that first season we had both had a couple of close calls but no dead turkeys.
The second season started out the same way. Two weeks in, my cousin called and asked if I wanted to try and double team a bird he had found the day before. What the hell, two hunters meant the chance for twice the screw ups so at least we would have something to laugh about.
Daylight found us sitting about a hundred yards back in the woods from a new cutover and sure enough a bird started gobbling on the other side of the cutover. Looking back we probably should have moved closer but we had both gotten too close to birds before so we decided to stay where we were. We both called and go answers and not knowing any better we kept calling to him while he was on the roost. He finally flew down and started answering but wouldn't get closer.
I decided to crawl away and call, hoping the gobbler would think I was leaving and follow.
Back then you could rent a VCR and movies and the previous night I had watched Ben Lee kill a bunch of turkeys. The one thing I got from the video was he said if you have a bird that will answer your every call then keep calling to him so I sawed away on that old Lowman box call until I just about wore the edge down.
Thirty minutes later he was still gobbling from the same spot and I was about ready to move but then he got quiet. Back then I didn't know that meant he was coming so I thought he had left. Just as I was about to get up the sound of my cousin's old model twelve going off damn near made me holler. I jumped up and sure as shit there was his first turkey, flopping on the ground. Well I'll be damn, it is possible to call up and kill a turkey just like they do it on the videos.
Two weeks before the season ended I still hadn't killed a turkey of my own and we had to put my one year old son in the hospital with menningitious so I thought my season was pretty much over. Back then if a season ended on a Sunday DNR extended it to the following Monday. That Sunday night we knew my son was going to live and my wife suggested I give it one last try the next morning so I could at least get out of the hospital for a while.
I decided to go to where I had heard a bird the last time I had been to the club and if he didn't gobble at daybreak, I would head back to the hospital. Daybreak came and no gobble to I started the walk back to the truck. I had gone about a hundred yards when I thought I heard something so I stopped.
Nothing.
Start walking again and again I think I hear something. Stop and listen and again, Nothing. Walk a little more and hear something again. Stop and this time I hear a gobble, back where I came from.
I haul ass back to my original tree and start calling. He answers and I decided right then and there that if I don't kill him this is already a perfect morning. My son is going to live and I am in the Spring woods listening to and talking to a wild turkey.
He answers me several times then I hear a pack of dogs chasing something our way. Damn if they don't run right under where he is roosting and he shuts up. When they finally leave he answers my call but damn if the dogs don't circle around and he shuts up again. This happens twice more and after the last time he won't gobble at anything I do. I figure he has left the county and decide to walk down to where I heard him to look around before I leave for the hospital.
Because it's already May 2nd, the trees are fully foilaged and the way the firebreak twists and turns I am damn near under his roost tree before the bird that is still there sees me. I could hear him when he flushed but the leaves are so thick that I can only get glimpses of a bird flying almost directly toward me.
He hits one little opening and I see a beard but don't have time to shoot. He hits the next and last little opening before he will be gone and I take a quick snap shot and he folds up like a 16 pound wood duck and I have my first turkey.
He was the first and last turkey I have shot out of the tree. He wasn't called up like on the videos but his fan still holds the place of honor about my fireplace.
That's mine. Tell me about yours.
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