Springtime Thunder

By Brian Sorrells

     I decided to justify the purchase of a new shotgun with the fact that I have yet to kill a turkey with my longbow. Despite years of trying, I just can’t seem to close the deal. After a turkey-less ’08 spring, I decided that this spring would be different. Besides, Cosner’s Gun Shop had a great deal on a camouflage Remington 870 with a short barrel. Oh yeah.

     Regardless of what I’m hunting turkeys with, I’m not a “roost-‘em the night before and sneak in on ‘em before daylight” kinda guy. I like to either wait for one to gobble on the roost and then bust my rear to get to him or set up in a likely spot and give a few soft tree yelps.

I elected to try the latter on opening morning this year. Although the place I hunt is a turkey haven, there’s 900+ acres of it with lots of open fields and likely strutting zones. So, I decided to set up my decoys in the place I call “The Bottom Field”. This field has a lot of significance for me, not only because I have had many adventures with all species of animals here and created a lot of wonderful memories, but also because I’ve seen turkeys down here several mornings in a row. On this farm though, that matters little. They’re more likely to be on the other side of the farm come opening morning. I’ll share more adventures from “The Bottom Field” later on. I think you’ll enjoy them.

     After staking out a hen and jake decoy about thirty yards out in the field, where they’d be easily seen by turkeys flying down from either side of me, I found a “comfortable” tree to lean back against and let the sights, sounds, and smells of the morning envelope me. The eastern sky was turning a pale pink and I could see halfway across the field when I decided I’d heard enough silence out of the turkeys and lofted a couple of low-keyed tree yelps. When a hen first wakes up, she’s like most women (no offense, ladies) in that it takes her a minute to get going. She’ll stretch her wings then, almost as if she’s afraid to wake anything else up, she’ll yelp softly several times.

     Most turkey hunters know that in nature, the hens go to the toms, not vice-versa. So when we successfully call in a gobbler, we’ve made him do something contrary to his very nature. When a hen tree yelps, nearby toms will usually begin gobbling, competing for hens. The hen will then decide for herself (if she’s roosted alone) which gobble (and gobbler) she likes best and fly down, making her way to his tree. If it’s a group of hens roosted together, then the old matriarch hen usually decides for the rest of the group which direction they head when they fly down.

     As my last yelp floated up the hill, a tremendous gobble suddenly shook the leaves of the tree I was sitting under. He couldn’t be more than 75 yards up the hill from me! Oh joy! Oh, what luck! “I can’t miss now. It doesn’t get anymore perfect than this” I thought to myself with a grin. But, as with all turkey hunting, things didn’t go as planned. Even though I’d lucked into a perfect setup and he answered every call from me, he flew down the opposite direction, into the fields on top.

     I waited a prudent amount of time before sliding out into the edge of the field and, seeing no birds anywhere, stuffing my decoys into my backpack and sidling up the hill. I sat down in the edge of the woods in a horseshoe-shaped clearing up top and sanded down my slate call. Being slightly winded from the climb up, I thought I’d give the turkeys something different to listen to for a while. Starting out with a few clucks and some contented purring, a throaty gobble followed the first yelp. A hundred yards distant, where the terrain dips down sharply before coming back up, I saw a pair of tail fans. Found ‘em! I cut back on the yelping and tried to sound like a few hens feeding. Before long, the tail fans turned into mature gobblers, along with a half-dozen hens. There were more than two gobblers because I could hear gobbles to my right, out of sight from my location. The turkeys remained in view for several minutes before going back the way they’d come from.

Thinking I knew where they were going, I put a hill top between them and me and headed for another wood line on the other side of the field. The results there weren’t much better as I heard only a couple of distant gobbles and saw nothing. But, I thought I knew where they’d go.

     Just about smack-dab in the middle of the farm is a hilltop that overlooks almost the whole farm. A finger of woods parallels a dirt and gravel road, creating a strutting zone and feeding area where many of the farm’s turkey population will gather mid-morning to socialize.

I beat feet up to the end of the finger of woods and sat down in a spot where I could see well in all directions. Instead of calling immediately, I took a good long drink of water and stuck a diaphragm call back in my mouth. Letting loose with some fairly aggressive cutting, I heard what every spring turkey hunter dreams about. About fifty yards into the woods, over a small rise, was a group of at least five mature gobblers, one jake (I could tell by his short, raggedy gobble) and several hens.

     Luckily, the birds had arrived before me but I hadn’t been spotted coming in. Measuring my calling by the response of the hens, I soon had at least three big toms gobbling at me and one very upset old hen. The more I clucked and yelped, the louder and closer she got. What I saw next made me forget all about the old hen, however.

     Through a break in the new undergrowth, I caught a glimpse of red, white, and blue. You and I both know that means only one thing. Following close behind were two more heads of like color and, as they made their way closer, I could see tail fans. All three had primary tail feathers of the same length, meaning they were all mature gobblers.

     Weaving their way through the understory, they evidently decided I’d give ‘em more attention than the hens they were with and they were committed. My heart was hammering in my chest and the diaphragm was stuck to the roof of my now bone dry mouth.

     At thirty yards, they all stopped in full strut, facing various directions. Since I hadn’t yelped for quite a while, they’d paused to get a fix on that sexy thing that had lured them away from the rest of the party. “Boy”, I thought, “It’s now or never”! Lining up the front bead of the Remington at the base of the neck of the first bird (it was closest and had stuck its head up to look for the invisible hen) I pushed the safety off and slowly squeezed the trigger. I don’t remember the “kaboom” but I do remember the recoil as the 3” magnum load of #4 shot left the barrel of that lightweight little shotgun.

      The last I saw of the turkey was when his feet went over his head and he tumbled backwards off the little hillcrest they’d all been on. The other two toms immediately took off and I tried to sooth the damage by giving a few reassuring yelps and clucks, a task that was monumental considering my mouth was about as dry as one’s mouth can get.

     I could hear the remainder of the flock leaving the area as I ejected the spent shell and stoked another into the chamber, placing the gun back on safe. As I crested the small hill, there, in a pool of early morning light, lay my prize. Not a feather was ruffled and the ground clutter was relatively undisturbed, telling me that the bird had died very quickly.

     Turkeys are hard to kill and most hunters will tell you that, regardless of what size of shot and shell they used, they usually find pellets that have been stopped by the turkey’s tough feathers. That’s why it is so important to know how your shotgun patterns and where to hold in order to get the majority of the pattern in the turkey’s head and neck. My new Remington “Turkey Special” had been indoctrinated right. As I walked from the woods into the field to take photos, the sky was cloudless and the sunshine perfect. Sometimes thunder in the spring has nothing to do with the weather.