PART I
Turkey hunting is stupid. I know, some of you have already picked up rocks to throw my way; you may have even loaded your Mossberg 500 with three-inch magnums and jumped in your truck to drive to West Virginia. But wait; let me explain.
You get up before the crow has taken his morning leak. Then, you drive for miles out into the country. Just as the sun is starting to pink-up the morning sky, you get out a long tube and blow into it trying to sound like an owl. What you really sound like is a cow with digestion problems.
Then, nothing happens.
You walk about a mile, blow into your fake owl / cow call again and then you hear a turkey gobble back where you parked the truck.
The sun is almost up so you run. Yes, you run like your headed to home plate – like Forest Gump, back to almost where your truck is parked. Then you throw out some plastic birds that look like depressed, meth – head turkeys. Next, you put your back against a tree and pull a mask down over your face because you think that the turkey you’re hunting knows the turkey hunting expert you are.
Now, it gets even more stupid. You put a piece of rubber in your mouth and start blowing; trying to make a sound like a lovesick hen. The really talented turkey callers move their head in a turkey like motion. They even put their hand up to their face so it is apparent to any turkey watching that they are truly skilled operators. This undoubtedly makes the noises they are creating all that more real.
The gobbler answers again. (Turkeys will sometimes gobble at anything – like a truck door slamming – so don’t get the big head.) This time he sounds really excited. You’ve yelled at him and said, “Hey, I’m a girl turkey and I want sex.” When he answered you, you thought he said, “Here I come baby.” You think you can talk turkey; you’re wrong. What you really said was, “I have a headache and its that time of the month.”
Even though there was not another turkey bird talking that morning, and even though that gobbler was only about 100 yards away. And even though you were begging for loving in your best turkey voice, the gobbler did not care. He flew down – you heard it – and when he hit the ground he gobbled again. You answered with, “Oh baby! I’ll spread my feathers for you!” He answered back and you thought he said, “I’m headed your way.”
What he really said was, “You’re not my type.” As he began to walk away, gobbling about every fifth step.
Turkey’s are stupid birds. Let a woman yell the same thing at a man and he’ll break a leg, ford a river, climb a mountain and try to work a calculus problem while headed her way.
Sometimes, for whatever reason, a gobbler will walk in your direction when you are calling. Sometimes when they do, they get close enough to shoot at. This is typically where the concept of using a shotgun to kill a turkey proves to be just as stupid as hunting them altogether. You aim at the bird’s head – he’s only 20 yards away – and you pull the trigger and he promptly runs off. Somehow he managed to find a hole in the hundreds of BBs pattern you threw his way.
You rub your shoulder and wonder why in the hell you thought a three-inch magnum was a good idea and decide a bologna and cheese sandwich, with a warm Coke, would be perfect just about now. Yeah, you could eat it while driving home, listening to that cassette tape on how to call turkeys. (If you don’t know what a cassette tape is, stop reading right here, you’re not old enough to experience the disappointment known as turkey hunting.)
Course, other things can happen when you’re turkey hunting too. Once in Oklahoma I was turkey hunting with an in-line muzzleloading shotgun. The big gobbler came into about 50 yards. Oh, let me tell you, he wanted some of the girl bird I sounded like. I cocked the gun. Well, I tried to cock the gun; the hammer would not stay back. The gobbler was coming and coming fast and the only thing I could do was hold the hammer back and let it go while I held the trigger down.
It worked; the gun went off when the birds was at about 25 yards and the 38-pound gobbler was hidden by smoke. (I’m an excellent judge of turkey weight just like all turkey hunters are – even those who have only killed one.) When the smoke cleared I could see him running across the field like his ass was on fire and his head was a catching. (I figure he thought the blackpowder smoke was mustard gas. I think I heard him coughing when he hit the tree line.) I hate shotguns almost as much as I hate in-line muzzleloaders.
This is why when I do turkey hunt I use a real gun like a rifle or a pistol. Yes, this is illegal in some states but not in West Virginia. In fact, I’ve found out that turkey birds can ignore me just as well no matter what kind of gun I’m carrying. Maybe the best turkey gun would be something like a Mossberg 500 topped off with one of them high-tech EOTech holographic sights. That, combined with a magazine tube full punk’n balls (For those who don’t know, that’s old timey talk for slugs.) should be just about perfect for stupid, un-killable birds.
I might go turkey hunting this spring. My son has a desire to kill one with his grandpa’s old model 12. Like most turkey hunters, I’m an excellent caller but I’m convinced that the turkeys in my neck of the woods don’t speak southern. (I think when West Virginia restocked and rebuilt their turkey population they used northern birds.) I’m also sometimes convinced that my property is actually a lesbian retreat for turkeys; hens are everywhere but the gobblers always seem to be on the neighbor’s property. They’re safe over there though; he don’t know how to kill those stupid birds either.
PART II
He was gobbling while I was putting out my decoys. A professional turkey hunter would have said I was late. I’m not a professional turkey hunter.
I put my back against a tree, which was at the top of a rock cliff, unholstered my Blackhawk and cocked it. I hit a few licks on the call and three turkey birds gobbled. I hit another lick and lost count of how many were gobbling, but I did pick up a gobble that sounded more like a pit bull growling than a 25 pound bird.
I said to myself, “This is going to be good.” and hit the call again…I couldn’t stop. The reward was like the gratification of eating one Oreo right after another. There was a pause in the action as the birds flew down under the canopy of the tall pines and then I heard hens clucking and working up to the right. The gobblers were pounding their chests over to my left.
Since the hens were calling, I just shut up figuring they would bring the boys right to my decoys and my gun barrel. The first to show up were more hens; they arrived from the East and paused momentarily to gander at the pathetic foam like ornaments meant to look just like them. I could hear the gobblers following them so I picked up the Ruger and tried to relax.
First to arrive was an ostrich like gobbler with all his attention focused on one hen. They locked up at 40 yards and continued to flirt until the hens to my right began to fight. Then, behind this big bird came five more long beards all in a strut. After showing off their feathers and blowing the tops off the trees, they passed like the lead gobbler, but at about 30 yards. I held my fire, hoping for a sure thing.
The gaggle of hens and gobblers were moving off and I heard the troll down in the rocks growl again. Thinking I could pull him up the road between me and where the others had passed I hit the call. A professional turkey hunter would have stayed quite and let him come to the natural action. I’m not a professional turkey hunter.
Most of the birds were now out of sight. They were still creating a ruckus but I knew they were not going to turn and come my way. I thought, I’ll call one more time and then try to move and cut them off. I hit the call and WHAM!! The pit bull like gobble boomed from about 15 feet behind me. The damn bird had climbed the rock cliff and snuck up on me!
When gravity overcame my upwards propulsion and my ass hit the ground, the monster gobbler saw me and as I reached for my pistol he moved behind a tree. A professional turkey hunter would have had his shotgun up and would not have pissed his pants when that bird beast gobbled and blew out his right ear drum.
I swung the Ruger, put the glowing green fiber optic front sight on the bird’s ass as it swiftly waddled away and pulled the trigger.
I missed.
The woods were quite except for the ringing in my ears.
And then, about 60 yards away, the old bird broke the silence one last time as he growled out a gobble that I could have sworn said, “You should have had a shotgun!”
A professional turkey hunter would have had a shotgun and would have stood up and cussed that bird. I’m not a professional turkey hunter. I holstered my six gun and laughed all they way back to the house.
Turkey hunting is stupid!
PART III
Not being a professional turkey hunter and seeing how my son wanted to shoot a turkey bird with his grandfather’s old model 12, 16 gauge, I called one in. Calling in a professional turkey hunter seemed much easier than calling in a turkey; this is probably because there are more professional turkey hunters than turkeys.
On the specified day the expert showed up. I was a bit surprised to discover his camo pants did not match his camo shirt or even his camo turkey vest. But, when he spread that vest open, like a big gobbler shaking the morning dew from his wings, my eyes caught a glimpse of what looked to be a dozen, hand crafted slate call strikers.
Impressive!
Figuring the birds would not stand a chance with a real professional in tow, Bat and I headed out to the woods with the expert. I also knew he was an expert because he talked of things like putts and purrs, grand slams and spurs. A real turkey talker he was. Course, that fancy Remington VersaMax shotgun he was carrying – which might have cost as much as his turkey calls – served as final confirmation this man was the real deal; a feathered warrior.
It was foggy and when our expert caller hit his first note, the hens went to chattering and a gobbler sounded like he yelled at them and told them to stop. They didn’t. Well, that’s until they flew down from the roost. Then the forest fell silent. 20 minutes more calling produced three hens. Well, the expert said he called them up but they stopped about 25 yards short of us and looked around like they thought there might be an injured crow somewhere. The hens got tired of that pretty quick and ambled on off in the direction the other 40 turkeys we saw marching down the ridge had went.
Bat had to go to school and had still not had breakfast so, we figured the morning was blown and headed toward the house. Not wanting to sound like a non-believer, I asked the expert, “What you think went wrong this morning?” He didn’t say anything for a bit. After we had walked a littler further he offered his expert opinion and said, “I’m not real sure what was wrong this morning.” Bat just looked at me a grinned.
I said, “Dude, I thought you were the expert! Don’t you know turkeys are stupid?” He never said another word, just kept walking towards the house; head hung low. A true professional turkey hunter would never call his quarry stupid, even though he knows its true.
Confession: I cannot tell a lie, the expert turkey hunter I mentioned is my good friend Chris Ellis. He’s killed a lot of turkeys in a lot of places. He’s being hunting turkeys so long, he sometimes walks with that wobbling, head bobbing kind of jive so similar to the young hens he tries to imitate. Unlike me, Chris is also a firm believer in luck. This proves that he is indeed a professional turkey hunter because what else do they have to trust in?
