Rolling Thunder

The day I harvested my first turkey, I learned the hard way just exactly why they earned the nickname ‘Thunder Chickens.’ It was the 2^nd day of the 2014 Spring Turkey season but the first day we were able to get out and hunt thanks to our school schedule. Initially I had planned on being by myself, but a last minute phone call from Kyle the night before resulted in him joining me on the adventure. Now, I had sat with my dad a couple of times and hunted once at my buddy Silas’s farm, but never had an opportunity to be a part of a successful hunt. So to say that at this point I was an amateur turkey hunter might just be an understatement. But I had a gun, some shells, a diaphragm call, and a spot to go, so I decided to give it a try. Having Kyle there, if nothing else, would at least cut through some of the boredom if I didn’t see any birds.

                We headed out for Bois D’ Arc Conservation Area in the early hours of the morning, filled out our daily hunter cards at the self-registration box, and made our way to the field. From the parking lot, it was about a mile-long walk to spot I wanted to sit. We found a little spot in a tree line on the edge of a field and cleared a place to sit. I set my hen decoy out in front of us about 30 yards. I wanted it out far enough so that any birds that came in would focus their attention on her and not notice us, but close enough that if a bird hung up before getting right to her he’d still be in shotgun range. We settled in and spent a few minutes just listening for gobbles before sunrise. Just two friends, hunkered down in the woods, surrounded by the dark and silent wild.

Just before shooting hours, I commenced to calling. I wasn’t by any means a professional turkey caller but I could give a few simple putts and chirps. It didn’t take long to start getting positive responses from the area toms. Holy cow, they’re actually responding to me! I thought as I would call and get gobbles in response from multiple directions. Kyle, being equally as inexperienced as I was at turkey hunting, was just as excited as I was.

“Did you hear that one behind us?” he’d ask. “How far back there is he you think?”

“I don’t know, sounds like he’s way back there.”

 I was just guessing, I really had no idea whether they were 100 yards away or half a mile. I just knew I could hear them. Remembering what my roommate had told me about calling, I made sure not to over call. Having grown up turkey hunting every year in Kansas, and having had gone out with his brother and another friend the week before and putting three birds down in Kansas on opening morning, I figured I could trust any knowledge he passed along to me. So I implemented his rule for calling: One short string of chirps and putts followed by 15 minutes of silence. Zac told me that if you call too much, the toms are going to figure out where you’re at and figure they can come back to you any time later, if they decide to come to you at all. Excessive calling also increases your chances of hitting a sour note or spooking a bird that is already getting close. I actually set my phone down on the ground beside me and very literally stuck to that 15 minute rule. If my first call was at, say, 6:12, I didn’t dare make so much as a peep until 6:27. As soon as I saw that 15 minute mark on my phone, I got after it again. This required an exponential amount of patience, as during my “radio silence” I could hear the toms gobbling and getting closer. They’d gobble 3 or 4 times in the 15 minutes, seemingly begging me to answer. But I held firm.

Slowly, one by one, the toms seemed to lose interest. The couple we were hearing to the north of us just stopped responding. The one behind would sound like he was getting closer with each gobble, then we’d suddenly hear him so far back that we could barely make out his gobble at all. As the sun rose almost directly in front of us, I began to wonder if I had chosen a bad spot for us to sit.

I asked Kyle, “think we should have set up over on the other side of the field, down there by that corn?”

“We could always move over there I guess, if you want to.” He answered.

We toiled with the idea for a little while, but ultimately decided to remain where we were.

“I’ve got class this morning, so we are going to need to leave by about 8:00.” Kyle reminded me. We had already discussed when we were going to leave so we could make it to our respective classes, and it was already creeping up on 8:00. By this time even our come-and-go gobbler back behind us had gone full silent. We stretched our leave time back to 8:15, mostly because I was still ridiculously optimistic that something was going to happen for us. We finally decided we’d had enough and were going to call it quits for the morning. We stood up and stretched our legs, and Kyle stepped deeper into the brush behind us to take a leak before we headed out. While he was doing that, I scanned across the far side of the field toward what had been a corn field.

“Kyle, get down! Birds!” I whispered.

“Where?”

“Far side of the field, four of them!”

“Toms?”

“I can’t tell, I think they may be hens.”

“Ha, told you we should have moved over there dude!”

“It’s a little late for that now. Hang on, I’m going to call at ‘em and see how they respond.”

And so I did. A short little series of chirps and putts, just like before. Not one inkling of a reaction. So I hit it again. Nothing. I figured, you know what? We’re getting ready to leave, it doesn’t matter anymore. I started hammering on that diaphragm call, trying every little putt and click and purr and coo that I could, just hoping to get some kind of response or reaction out of those hens, to confirm that I was in fact doing it right. I’m fairly certain those hens could hear me, they just simply didn’t seem to care. I thought they’d at least pick their heads up and look our way, acknowledging our presence, but they just kept milling around out there in that corn stubble.

“We really gotta get going man.” Kyle pressed. He was worried about being late for class. It wouldn’t have been the first time either of us had skipped class hunting, but we were trying to break that habit.

I started to say, “Alright, let’s go.” But I got about half of it out before I was drowned out by the deafening boom of a gobbler not more than 50 yards to our right. Both of us hit the deck so hard I thought for sure we had spooked him and he was gone already. He had snuck in through a break in the tree line from the fields directly behind us. Never once did we hear him gobble until he got to the same field we were set up on.

GOLLALALALALALALA! Nope, still there! At this point my heart rate was probably bordering on 200 beats per minute. I had never in my life experienced an encounter with a wild turkey like this. He was either intrigued by all the calling that I had done at those hens or just simply annoyed to the point that he decided to come tell me to shut the hell up. Speaking of those hens, they bolted as soon as he gobbled that first time. Guess they just weren’t interested in finding a man that day.

“Dude, you might be late for class today.” I whispered to Kyle.

“Class? Forget about class, kill this bird!” he spouted back under his breath.

Even though I was closer to our new friend than Kyle, thanks to some brush in front of me he had the better angle on being able to see him.

GOLLALALALALALALALA! Again. This guy is fired up! I frantically get my call back in my mouth and chirp at him. GOLLAAALALALALALALA! Back and forth we go, me calling and him responding, 2 or 3 more times. I work myself up to my knees so I can poke my head up just high enough over the brambles I was using for cover to see him. Wow, what a magnificent animal!

“Am I shooting or are you?” I ask Kyle. This was his one chance to claim the bird.

“You. You shoot him! This was your hunt.” How thoughtful of him, letting me take the shot.

I slowly bring my gun up, twisting it around to my right. He crosses behind a low hanging tree branch and steps out into the open, still in full strut and taking one step at a time. Now he should be seeing my decoy, and I’m thinking he could make a beeline right for her. My idea was that I was going to pick him off before he got to her, hopefully. I called one more time, just to seal the deal, but he didn’t gobble back. Then he made a half turn and started to drop his feathers. It’s now or never, gotta shoot! BOOM! As soon as he turned his back to me I brought my gun to my shoulder and put the bead right on the back of his head. He hit the ground flopping and flapping his wings, but he wasn’t going anywhere. I jumped up and headed toward him, the adrenaline really pumping in my veins. I did it! I harvested a turkey! This is the happiest moment of my life! My mind was going a mile a minute with thoughts and elation. Several high fives and a couple pictures later, I slung that majestic beast on my back and we made our way to the truck. I even got Kyle back to town in time for class.