It's been a tough spring for turkey.
Spring time can mean many things to just as many outdoorsmen. Some folks can't wait for mushroom season to start, others focus on fishing or maybe the garden, but a large group of men and women nation wide anticipate spring turkey season all year long. Hunting turkeys in the spring can be very exciting and a great way to introduce new hunters to the sport. Often spring turkey hunting happens quickly with lots of action and in comfortable weather. Tom turkeys are often vocal and territorial during the spring breeding season with loud gobbles and beautiful strutting displays. Calling tactics can be loud and crazy and very productive. While not all hunts go as planned and not all turkeys read the script, this year has been an exceptionally challenging one for Modern Wild Man.
Turkey hunting comes with a level of camaraderie and fellowship with other turkey hunters. Turkey hunting can easily be adapted from one solo hunter to a pair of hunters working together. Two folks in camo sitting in the turkey woods can enjoy great fellowship and be very productive. Working an ole' gobbler as a pair, one hunter calling trying to work a tom past the shooter is a great tactic. It was camaraderie and fellowship that led me to a limited draw hunt with a hunting friend this spring.
The plan was a good one, and honest enough. Fellow Modern Wild Man and friend Brandon had been on a limited draw turkey hunt put on by the state of Kansas before, and done well. Each draw winner is able to bring along a hunting partner to participate with the awardee. We both put in for the same hunt time in hopes that one would draw a hunt and take the other as their hunt partner. It worked out. I was lucky enough to draw a hunt, and Brandon came along as my hunting partner. We worked out details, got a hotel room and anticipation for the hunt was high. Turkey season and springtime weather can be unpredictable at best. As time to our hunt grew close the weather forecast looked worse and worse. Brandon and I both had Friday afternoon and all day Saturday to hunt. Friday was a beautiful April day, we attended a quick safety meeting required for the hunt and drew our hunt unit. Immediately we found turkeys in our unit and as typical turkey tactic we watched the turkeys go to evening roost and planned to hunt that area in the morning. With hopes high and Saturday's hunt highly anticipated we called it an early night. Friday night brought rain, wind and more rain. The rain came hard and soft and sideways and any way that rain comes. With gusting wind and occasional lightning, we could only hope that the rain let up by morning. We had no such luck. The rain continued all day Saturday, it was cold and wet and pretty miserable. Knowing the forecast and the good possibility for rain we of course had brought rain gear and even a ground blind to hunt from. While staying relatively dry considering the conditions, the hunting was terrible. Turkeys are not fond of wet cold weather. Toms seldom gobble when conditions are wet, and the typical feeding and strutting patterns of wild turkeys go out the window when the weather is rainy. Brandon and I stuck it out, we saw a few turkeys hiding away under trees looking for shelter, but the hunting was some of the worst I have had. This was the start to my spring turkey season.
One fact of hunting is failure. The old adage of two steps forward and one step back is about as an appropriate description as I can think of. Learning to be successful and develop tactics, tools and skills to outwit wild animals in their environment and on their terms, often against mother nature and the weather, can be challenging at best. Spring turkey hunting can be a perfect example of this. I'm not sure where the term "bird brain" came from, but whoever coined it didn't hunt wary old tom turkeys. Sure turkeys are successfully hunted from coast to coast of North America, they can be called in and decoyed, but don't let anyone try and tell you that hunting mature gobblers is easy.
And so the season went: rainy days, cold fronts, juggling family and work and trying to get in the turkey woods. I had a close encounter with two toms the first week of May, but in typical turkey fashion they hung up just out of shotgun range and finally moved on. Another morning I was able to get onto a hot tom gobbling back quickly every time I let loose a hen yelp. Hoping to close the distance and work this bird into range I made a rookie mistake and overran the bird. The ole tom was coming in, probably faster than I was moving to him and somewhere in the middle we almost ran into each other poking along a brushy creek bottom. The gobbler was as surprised as me and high tailed it out of there before I could even think to shoulder my shotgun. This was most of my spring turkey season, frustration and failure, but quality time outdoors. I have to admit, a poor day in the woods is still better than my best day at work. That's what keeps outdoorsmen coming back; being apart of the outdoors, not just in the outdoors, but apart of it. Hearing a raspy ole tom gobble on the roost at sunup, or having a hen pitch down and land nearly on you lap gets in your blood and makes a turkey hunting addict out of many sportsmen who venture into the spring turkey woods and fields.
Finally, I caught a break. The weather was good over a weekend, I was free from other obligations and I was able to locate and roost an ole gobbler the evening before my planned hunt. Expectations were high and sleep that night was hard to come by. Four O'clock in the morning couldn't come soon enough. I was up early, poured down coffee and was ready to start the hunt. Sneaking into a turkeys roost in the dark can be tricky, noise and movement will alarm a bird on the roost. I was able to work into a clearing near where the tom was roosted with the cover of darkness and a brushy fence row. As the eastern horizon began to glow with blazes of orange, red and yellow, that ole tom turkey let out a gobble.
Here is a quick video putting a gobbler to bed the evening before the next morning's hunt-
I had a lone hen decoy in front and off to my side twelve or fifteen yards, and the scenario for this hunt was playing out perfectly. The tom turkey pitched down when the morning sun began to streak through the hackberry tree he was roosted in. A gobble on the roost to announce his presence, and one on the ground telling all the hens around where he was. With the tom on the ground and on the lookout for a hen, I took off my hat and flapped it against my leg sounding like a birds wings coming of the roost. I picked up my little push-pull call and opened with a series of clucks and purrs and ended with a string of lonely hen yelps. The ole long beard tom covered up my calls with a loud gobble, a sure sign that he was coming to investigate. A brushy tree line was between me and the turkey. I was setup in a field the birds often used to feed in and definitely in this toms strut zone. Using the tree line and brush as cover I was able to setup inside of seventy five yards from where the tom pitched down to. I played a seesaw game with the tom for a while. He'd gobble and I'd let out a soft purr or cluck, just to let him know I was still there. The game went on with a yelp here and there from my box call and then a purr from a push-pull call. That tom sounded off every time I called and often times he tried to cover up my call with his gobbles. After a little bit of the back and forth I shut off my calling, a tactic to try and peak that gobblers curiosity. The idea is when the hen the hunter is playing to be quits calling, that ole tom will come looking for her.
That tom did come in, he snuck in quietly through the brush and into the open field. Sixty yards or so from my decoy and seventy five yards or so from my twelve gauge Browning loaded with 3 1/2" magnum #5 loads. As soon as that turkey came into view of my decoy he gobbled and went into strut. His fan was huge, proudly shining in the morning sun. That ole tom sported a long beard worn on the end from dragging on the ground and puffed up his chest putting on an amazing display. That gobbler was the king of his realm and he was coming into my setup just like I had hoped. I watched the show, my heart racing and my trigger finger ready for action. I wanted that bird to close the distance, and he was doing just that, strutting and gobbling as he slowly worked closer and closer.
Just when I thought the hunt was about to end perfectly, when ten or twelve more yards from that strutting and drumming bird was all I needed to close the deal, something I had never seen before happened. A group of four jakes moved into the field from my right. Jakes are yearling male birds often forced away from the flock in early spring by mature toms just before breading season begins. As springtime progresses, it is common for jakes to band together in groups of three or more and form their own little flocks. As a one on one, jakes are no match for a mature tom. Toms will protect their territory and hens from an intruding jake, but as the spring progresses and jakes band together they will sometimes gang up on and drive away mature gobblers. Being an outdoorsman for as long as I can remember, and soaking up every bit of woods knowledge I could from magazines, books and TV, my hunting and outdoor career began well before the internet. I had read about jakes beating up on toms in publications and turkey hunting books but never witnessed it.
Then it happened. That group of four jakes rushed my prized tom. They ganged up on him and began to flog him with their wings, beaks and feet. The tom tried to retreat, but every escape was covered by one of the jakes. The sound of the jakes and my trophy tom fighting it out on that field was loud and wailing. Long loud purrs and yelps mixed with cut vocalizations and the sound of flogging wings. Finally the tom broke loose from the group and ran up a nearby hill for cover. That gobbler didn't go far, but just out of reach from the gang of jakes. Running up onto a nearby bluff overlooking the field and my decoy, the tom I had been hunting set about to gobble and strut on the hilltop. The jakes remained in the field, uninterested in any calls I made, but also not interested in leaving the field to allow the tom back to my hen decoy. A couple of times the tom turkey tried to sneak back to the field and my decoy, only to be headed off and chased again by the jakes.
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| Here you can see the four jakes in the field and the tom on the hill strutting. |
Finally the band of jakes took off in pursuit of the tom and the outlaw jakes chased the gobbler off into the distance. I sat silently in defeat watching my prized tom sprint off over the horizon and away from the violent gang of teenage thugs in his pursuit. I thought about my season, about the defeat, about the few days I had left to hunt and about the two unfilled tags in my pocket. Tag soup never has a fine flavor, and tag sandwiches might be just as bad, but the reality is some tags do go unfilled. I was beginning to concede defeat, call it quits and go home to nurse my ego with a cup of coffee on the porch. Being beaten by a turkey can weigh heavy on a hunter. The emotional ups and downs of a hunting season wear on you and perspective is sometimes lost in self pity. In the end, I decided that the morning was still early, that I was in the turkey woods and at least I had seen birds, heard gobbles and got to witness a turkey fight. I stuck it out and found a comfortable spot under a mature oak tree in the shade. With an open view of the field and turkey tracks all around, I pulled out a copy of Fly Fishing Rocky Mountain National Park and I settled in for a few chapters.
Reading about nature and the woods outside has an interesting effect. Feeling the sun on your face and the breeze around you as you read about those very things can make the transformation of reading about great places even greater. In my head and heart I was caught up in casting dry Adams patterns to a rising brown trout in Big Thompson Canyon, while my body was parked under an old growth oak tree along a Kansas farm stead. Looking up from my book to survey the field, I watched a group of geese circle and land in the field. Probably nesting on a nearby lake the geese came into the field to feed. I watched the grand birds waddle along the agriculture field, pecking and scratching like hens in a barnyard. Just like that a group of birds, I assumed at first were more geese, caught my eye. Further out than the geese, but moving my way, and at a quick pace I raised my binoculars and picked out the group of outlaw jakes from earlier that morning. Still frustrated about the mornings foiled hunt and their role in my squandered opportunity, I felt an urge to fill one of my tags with a jake mostly out of retribution. The birds were at least three hundred yards away, and there was little chance they would pass by me. I sank back into my book, climbing snowy mountain passes and casting to active trout in my mind, but occasional checking on the jake flock slowly moving toward me on the field.
There is a lot to be said for hunting, fishing and life in general for the right place at the right time. Most of us can go on and on about lost or gained opportunity simply do to timing and circumstances beyond our control. One thing I know for certain though, very few turkeys were taken from the couch or snuggled under the covers in bed. Opportunities in general come about when effort allows. The right place at the right time often involves fortitude to be in the right place just as much as luck for the timing. That's how it worked out for me this morning. I had gotten out of bed well before daylight; after spending the previous evening roosting a tom turkey. I struck out with a nice mature tom off the roost, but working along the field edge closer and closer was a group of jakes who had spoiled my morning hunt. My hen decoy was perched about ten yards into the field and my position was well hidden with cedar saplings and oak brush. The jakes poked along, scratching and pecking and chasing one another with two and three step runs. Working along as birds on the ground do, one of the birds spotted my decoy. Then as if to not miss out on something great the group began to jog into shotgun range toward my lone hen.
It didn't take long, and the yearling birds had closed into easy shotgun range. Pecking and clucking and putting they looked over my decoy. Milling around, uneasy and unsure of this new found turkey that neither moved or called, they were nervous but not ready to leave. I watched them for a little while; half chuckling to myself and half still aggravated that they had chased off my prized tom earlier in the day. Watching these turkeys on a bright spring morning, surrounded by lush green and a bluebird sky I decided it was time to fill my Kansas spring turkey tags. In a moment, more by reflex than by will, I raised my shotgun and two bearded turkeys flopped around my decoy. The other two birds, not sure what had happened, but not sticking around to find out, headed for the timber on the run.
A jake may not be considered the trophy of a spring Kansas turkey hunt. The birds I harvested didn't sport long beards or spurs, and they were not larger than any other average jake in the woods. I had struggled through a long turkey season and on this morning, full of excitement and action I indeed had two trophy turkeys. That old tom hopefully made it through the season, and with enough luck maybe next year I can arrange for another morning to try it again.
