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Gobblers Up Close and Personal

May 3, 2009

Story by Paul Berg

Friday, May 1.
Sarah and I got to SLR about 1:00 pm on Friday, May 1. We patterned Dugie's 20 gauge, and made sure my 12 gauge was working, and were off. We walked down the fence line to the river, carrying the double bull blind. We followed it to TS2, and headed into the woods. We got to the slough that seemed to be a good area as the turkeys head to roost. We found a spot and set up the blind and put out two hen decoys. Sarah was to stay behind with the blind as I went to get the chairs. I only went about 20 yards back toward the river when I spotted 3 gobblers, about 90 yards away, directly to towards the river. I ducked behind a tree- luckily I had my gun and my call. I set out calling, and I had one that started towards me - but he only went about 10 yards. The others wouldn't follow, so they all held back. I held out for a few more minutes, and went back to the blind. I told Sarah to watch for them, and I ducked out South through the woods. When I got back to the blind with the chairs- I had not seen anything, and the gobblers did not make their way to the blind. We set up the chairs and I called from the blind. We waited for 1.5-2 hours, and we decided to head back to the river. We got to the river, and I called. Immediately we got a gobbler respond. He was about 100 yards to the West. We set up in front of a tree, and I continued to call. We got responses immediately- this guy was hot and heavy. After about 10 minutes, we finally saw him. A big gobbler, gobbling, strutting, going crazy. Unfortunately, he was on the other side of the river. We moved toward the river to see if we could get a shot. We got as far as we could go, but he was still 80 yards away. We watched as another joined him- the other guy was definitely skeptical- he was not strutting, only watching. The other guy just went nuts for a few more minutes. Finally, when we realized he was not coming across, we just watched as they eventually went back into the fields North of them. Pretty cool, but no shot. So we proceeded West. When we got nearly to the fence line, we heard a gobble- really close. He seemed to be only 30-40 yards away, Southeast from us, just on the other side of a bunch of trees. We set up in front of a couple of trees, and I started to call. They were gobbling back pretty aggressively. This went on for a couple of minutes- and I was trying to film it- I was sure this was going to be Sarah's first gobbler. But then after a few minutes of no response, I heard a turkey alert call about 150 yards away, and saw a bird fly into a tree. I knew we had been busted for some time. As we headed back to the shed, we saw the other gobbler about 100 yards away, in the neighbor's land, running away. I don't know what spooked them, but that was about as close as you get to getting a shot, without even seeing the bird. We headed around to the ponds, and set up just north of the last pond. We called, and occasionally heard a distant gobble, but no action. We started hearing birds fly into their roosts, so we started heading back. Just as we got to the road (30 yards away), 2 gobblers flew directly over the spot we were sitting, from about 40 yards to our west. If we had waited another 5 minutes they may have walked right by us. Oh well, we blew another one.

Saturday, May 2.
We had not seen where the turkeys roosted, so it did not seem to make sense to try to get out before sun-up; we didn't know where to go. So we headed out late and got to the ranch around 8:00 am. We decided to check the food plots, and sure enough, there were 20+ birds in the fields. We decided to try to get on them. We parked about 0.5 miles to the west, and set out on foot. We had a pretty good tree line to walk behind, and got about 100 yards from the West edge of the fields before we lost cover. Sarah and I both crawled (not hands and knees, but crawled) the last 90 yards, where we set up. There was a small tree about 10 yards from the field, where we set up and started calling. There were about 6 gobblers that were ~200 yards away, mostly east, but a bit south. They started working our way. About 100 yards away, a hen walked by and they all focused on her. They strutted around her for about 15 minutes. She was not impressed. Finally, the hen started working towards us, but the gobblers lost interest. She made it to about 60-70 yards from us, but the gobblers were working away. We decided that we would give it up, so we stopped calling. The hen went back to her nest about 100 yards south and east of us. After she was totally in the tall weeds, and the gobblers were ~200 yards away again, we tried to make our way out. But as we were moving out, they spotted us and ran back into the woods, directly north of where they were in the fields. We went back to the tent. The weather was tough all weekend, drizzling and a bit chilly. But at this point, around 10 am, it was raining pretty hard. So we drove to the tent, where we had a fire going, got warm, dry, and cooked hot dogs for lunch. After about an hour, we were warm, dry, and fat; and then it stopped raining. We worked our way around the fence back to the river, and walked a good portion of the ranch along the river. It was a long walk, in the drizzle, through marshy stuff. It was pretty nasty. We walked a lot; ended up at the same spot we ended the prior day. We called- nothing. There was absolutely nothing moving- anywhere - in the woods, by the river, anywhere. We heard nothing, saw nothing. I think we both got a little discouraged. We decided to head back to the truck to warm up and dry out. It was probably around 4:00. Sarah was absolutely soaked. Her feet were pruned up from so much water in her boots. So we put her socks on the dash board to dry out and drove around. To our surprise, the turkeys were back out in the food plots. And bunches of them. There must have been 20 or more gobblers. So we drove around until her socks were dry, then we went back. We parked the same place we had that morning, but instead of working directly to the fields, we went way back in the woods, with the intent of getting to the woods directly to the north of the food plots. Long story short, we walked a really long way, but made it to the edge of the woods, as far east as we could go in the woods, directly north of the fields. It was an unbelievable scene- there were probably 25 gobblers, and they were going nuts. They were fighting, running around, making more noise than I have ever heard. I got some unbelievable video footage- it was like the whole bunch was on crack. So Sarah and I were set up 10 yards from the edge of the field, both were up against cedar trees, about 10 yards apart. So we watched as these turkeys went absolutely crazy. There was one hen in the bunch, and every time she called, the gobblers went ape-sh@t. She started back into the woods, about 80 yards to the east. I was really worried she was going to take the whole group in- I actually got my call out. It was in my mouth, and I was about to start calling, but then a group of 4 gobblers broke off and I knew we were ok for now. So there are about 10 gobblers to our east, and a bit south. There are 4 gobblers now to our south and a bit west. So I got Sarah's attention, and we decided to crawl to the fence line. She was on the fence line facing more-or-less east, and towards the big group. I was on the fence line to the south, looking directly south. What I did not realize, is that when I started crawling, the 4 gobblers that were ~100 yards south, and a bit west, moved all the way to the fence line, basically half-way between Sarah and I. She was watching this whole thing unfold- I was completely clueless as I saw nothing when I was crawling. So I got to the fence line, and stuck my barrel through the line of weeds that was along the fence line. I was there no more than 10-15 seconds, when I heard a turkey to my left, and it was CLOSE. I usually just snap the safety off with my right finger, but I didn't want to make any noise, so I snuck my left hand off the stock and slid off the safety. I had just got my hand back to the stock, when I heard the unmistakable "pop, pop", of a turkey alert call. When I heard this, I did not move, I just cut my eyes to the left. I am not exaggerating when I say this, but a gobbler was 4 FEET from me. He was just on the other side of the fence, and no more than 3 feet to the left. If I could have swung my barrel to the left, I literally could have hit him with the barrel. So I am busted, cannot move a muscle. Then a second gobbler pokes his head up, about two feet away from him. I mean, they are just a few feet from me, staring right into my eyes, and "popping" constantly. The good news is that I was completely camoe'd, and I had the netting over my face- there was nothing for them to see. They knew something wasn't right, but nothing gave me away. So then through the weeds one gobbler passed right in front of my muzzle. Once again- no lie- about 8 inches from the barrel. I could have blindly pulled the trigger, and that would have been a dead gobbler. Of course there wouldn't be much left him either. Then another passed- right in front of the muzzle. Meanwhile, the second gobbler who showed up "popping", started moving into the field. As he moved, I slowly moved the gun up to where I could aim. He got 7 yards away, and I put the sights on him. I pulled the trigger and he dropped. The others went nuts. Fortunately I still had the call in my mouth, and I gave it a couple hen calls. Two gobblers stopped directly in front of me, heads up. I honestly had no idea how far they were, so I decided not to pull the trigger. One lesson I have now learned, is that things look farther than they really are when you are laying on your belly. It turns out these guys were ~25 yards away, and I could have easily had a double. But nothing could put a damper on this hunt. It was truly special. And the extra cool thing is that Sarah watched the entire thing unfold. I stepped off the distances I spoke of earlier after the hunt, and it is absolutely no exaggeration, they were steps away from literally stepping on me!

The turkey was a big tom. 8" beard, 3/4" spurs. He was a hog.