A
week or so later I got my first mature tom, and I can remember it like it was
yesterday. I figured there wasn’t much to this turkey hunting business, and
expected to get one every time I heard a gobble. In the years that followed, I
learned about all the things that keep turkey hunters humble. Indeed, it is
sometimes the easiest thing in the world to call in and kill a wild
gobbler. And then sometimes it
seems next to impossible, no matter how much you know, or the amount of
experience you have.
A
lack of patience was always my ruination; it still is today. A hunter who can
sit still for two or three house and envision his gobbler only 70 or 80 yards
away even after the gobbling has stopped is the hunter who will enjoy a great
deal of success. But me, I give up
on one too quickly and figure there might be another old tom sounding off in
another valley, just over the ridge.
Positioning
was another problem I had. It didn’t take long to learn that you didn’t sit in
the sunlight, or hide behind a tree you had to peer around.
Somehow, a hunter has to hide where he can get the best
opportunity to see the gobbler and shoot it. As simple as that sounds, it may
be the most complicated part of turkey hunting. If I hear one gobble close, I too often just plop down
anywhere that offers some cover.
After
learning all these things, and overcoming the worst of my shortcomings to some
degree, I found other mistakes to make.
For instance novice hunters hear a gobbler and very often try to get
within 50 yards. It seems like a good idea because then you only have to call
the tom 15 yards or so. But it seldom works, unless the wind is blowing very
hard and there’s a large rock wall between hunter and turkey. They can spot a
movement in the woods at unbelievable distances. And they can tell whether or not it’s a hen turkey. If it is
something else, they have no curiosity at all. It is best to try to call the gobbler a bit farther and not
risk making him suspicious by getting in too close.
I
am not going to tell you how many gobblers I have killed in the spring, but I
will tell you that in those many years I worked as a turkey hunting guide I
called in a lot of gobblers for clients, and quite a few for non-paying
friends. I also called in a few
that got spooked or got missed. I
will never forget the time I saw an 8-inch hickory tree take a full load of
number 6 shot as a gobbler stepped behind it, only 20 yards away. There are a
hundred or so stories like that. I
wrote a book entitled, “The Greatest Wild Gobblers, Lessons Learned from Old
Timers and Old Toms.” If you would
like to find out where to find one, call my office and have Ms. Wiggins, the
secretary, give you the information.
In
that book there is a chapter telling how you can make a little cedar box call
that I have used all these many years, a call that you can make in 10 minutes
or so. I’ve probably made a few hundred in the last several years, new ones
each year for new gobblers. It is
a soft call you can’t hear a long way off, but gobblers can. Hunters who
complain that they can call a gobbler from a half mile away but can’t get him
to come the final 70 or 80 yards are almost always too loud, most using mouth
calls.
Other
problems that new turkey hunters face include using 20-gauge or open-bore
shotguns; a smoker’s cough; and the tendency to doze off when it gets warm and
still on a beautiful spring morning.
Many hunters who fail are hunters who like to sneak up on turkeys, or come in for breakfast at 9:30 in the morning. this time of year, plenty turkey hunting stories begin with, "I should've..." or
"If only..."
They end with “next time…”
In the Ozarks this year there’s the problem of declining numbers of gobblers. It has been happening now for six or seven years and it is serious.
Next week I will write about why I think it is happening. In feeding and photographing winter
turkeys all over for the past ten years, I have seen a real decline, in some
areas where there were winter flocks holding ten or twelve mature gobblers, the
number has dropped to three or four.
That is a tremendous drop in numbers. But in this day and time, few turkey hunters, and few
wildlife biologists, spend enough time outdoors to know it. I hope it changes but I don’t think it
will be any time soon. Why?? More
about that and what I think we should do about it, in next week’s column.
Contact me via email, lightninridge47@gmail.com or call
my office, 417 777 5227. The mail
address is Box 22, Bolivar, Mo. 65613.
Read more material I write about conservation matters at
larrydablemontoutdoors.blogspot.com
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