It was
4:00 a.m.
on Friday April 15, and the opener of the 2005
Kentucky Spring
Turkey
season would occur just after dawn. The aroma of black coffee swirled in the air as I stood in the crisp darkness of my front porch, mentally preparing my strategy for the hunt ahead. The night was cool and starry and as I drank from the cup it offered I was content not so much in how it filled me as in how it emptied me, stripping me of life’s stresses and worries with each successive sip of the clear
Kentucky
sky.
Over the years I had hunted turkeys in several states, but this would be my first
Kentucky
turkey season and my first Spring as a
Kentucky
resident in many years. Although I had graduated from high school and college in
Kentucky
, career opportunities had lured me away for more than a decade and a half. But when I was offered a job that brought me back home to the Commonwealth to reunite with family and friends, it was not just an opportunity for reunions, but also an opportunity to return to the hardwoods where I had first learned to hunt and to try my hand at the Eastern turkeys that called them home.
I had gained hunting access to a large parcel of rolling agricultural land pocked with hardwoods and punctuated with freshly planted crop fields. Preseason scouting visits and discussions with the land owner had directed me to focus my efforts on a particular portion of ground that rose steeply from the county road access to an area of mixed fields of broom sedge and soy beans that bordered on all sides a 30-acre island of hardwoods where turkeys roosted. This location was classic wild turkey habitat and on opening morning I was anxious to make my way into the heart of this promising area and wait for the thunderous sound of gobblers to split the brightening sky.
By
5:30 a.m.
I was standing just inside the woods, breathing in the clean Spring air, clutching my favorite glass call, and waiting for day. As the overhead streaks of color gave way to whiter light and the cardinals began to chirp, I heard the first Eastern Tom announce his presence. In response, other gobblers quickly asserted themselves and within seconds, the woods were alive with the pronouncement of Spring I know so well…turkeys proudly thundering out a woodland melody that is as glorious as the bird himself.
I quickly moved to set up above a location where I had heard turkeys gobble some 150 yards from where I stood. I sat down in front of a large red oak, stroked out a few soft yelps with my glass call, propped my shotgun on my knee, and waited for the birds to fly down. However, when the birds left the roost, I could hear them walking away from me through the woods, gobbling occasionally, and heading toward a field of broom sedge. I knew that it would be impossible to get in front of them without being spotted, so I simply took note of the travel pattern of these turkeys for future reference and decided to try and find another bird.
It was now just after
7:00 a.m.
and I decided to make my way toward the woods edge and scan the freshly planted soybean field that surrounded two sides of the hardwoods. As I peered through the trees with my binoculars I was astounded to see a huge turkey strutting in the field not more than 150 yards away and moving in my direction. I quickly sat down, got ready, and gave a sequence of soft yelps on the glass call. I had placed my back against a small tree that was in a slight depression and seemed to be growing amidst a sea of bright green May apples. The foliage and elevation acted to somewhat obscure my view, which meant that I would possibly have difficulty seeing the bird’s approach and would need to be particularly diligent in my readiness. Thus, I switched from my glass call to a split, double reed mouth diaphragm to eliminate any turkey spooking movement. Without the ability to read the bird’s body language or to know his exact location as he approached, any mistake could cost me a shot at a bird that I desperately wanted to bag.
Softly, I clucked to the big Tom and in less than a second, he responded. I purred and he responded again. After another couple of minutes I scratched the leaves on the ground next to me. This time the thunderous gobble came from two birds, both coming from different directions and closing in fast. Now it was time for silence and to see which of these two rivals would win the race to their intended love interest.
The woods became quiet as I sat motionless and waited. There were no more gobbles, there was no rustling of leaves; only the heartbeat of anticipation that comes from the knowledge that the birds knew a hen was there.
And then it happened. I heard the faintest sound of a May apple leaf brush against something I could not see. And as I peered down the barrel of my
Winchester
1300 12- gauge shotgun, I met the eyes of the silent Tom whose head and neck were craned above the foliage, searching for the hen he knew he heard. Placing the bead on the mature bird’s wattles, I squeezed the trigger and watched the big Spring Monarch tumble onto the forest floor. Quickly, I jumped to my feet and trotted to the beautiful Tom lying majestic and motionless only 25 yards away. With a 10-inch beard and one inch spurs, he was a beautiful gobbler, my first
Kentucky
bird, and a glorious gift of nature.
Kentucky allows hunters to take two Spring Gobblers, so the next morning, a Saturday, I was back in the woods hoping for another lucky day. The weather was windy and although turkeys gobbled furiously from the roost, they were silent after flying down. Despite my best efforts at everything from running and gunning, to sitting down and calling quietly, I could not get a single bird to work. By afternoon, I was whipped and as I drove home to a late lunch of humble pie, I was reminded of what I love and what I hate about turkey hunting! It is a sport of exhilaration and frustration, stupendous highs, and humiliating lows. Yet through it all, no one can argue that it is indeed its own reward.
Day three was Sunday and I experienced the morning worshiping from a cathedral of earth, trees, and sky, appreciating the beauty at nature’s alter, and waiting for a chorus of jubilant longbeards to join in the celebration. As if not to disappoint, shortly after dawn a group of turkeys gobbled in the tree tops at the edge of one of the fields of broom sedge. I moved to get in position and then began to quietly call. It became obvious, however, that the birds had flown down before I got set-up and were now scattering out into the field.
This seemed to require a change in tactics, so I decided to find a concealed vantage point that would permit me to listen for birds while also giving me visual access to the field. I was suspicious that the hens were moving to the fields early to feed and nest and that the gobblers were cruising through the broom sedge seeking receptive females. An hour of glassing revealed that my hunch was right. There were hens scattered through the field and most of them seemed to be angling in a specific direction toward a distant ridge, so I decided to make a play in the hopes that I could use the far tree line for concealment to get to this location some half mile away. It was a long shot, but if I was going to fill my second turkey tag on this day, it was time to get aggressive. My only chance was to get in front of these birds.
At the age of 45, brisk uphill hikes in warm temperatures are not as much fun as they used to be. But I made it around the wooded boundary, over several fences, and to the top of the ridge in spite of the objections of Father Time. As I huffed and puffed to catch my breath, I smiled at the fact that after all these years of hunting, I still had it in me to do what it took to try and kill a turkey. My musings were short lived, however, as I quickly assessed the terrain to try and find a location to set up and call. I knew that turkeys were in the field and that they would be moving up the hill and toward the wooded ridge where I now stood. Still, I needed a location that would offer both concealment and force the birds within a 40 yard circumference of my vantage point.
After a quick assessment I settled into a small grove of medium-sized trees out in the field and directly adjacent to a long finger of hardwoods that extended from the ridge down the slope. I selected this location because I knew that it would force birds to completely top the ridge or come through the nearby hardwoods in an effort to see the hen I could only hope to realistically portray.
Mature gobblers can be difficult to hunt and I learned long ago that often the best strategy to coax one into range is to be as subtle as the mature feeding hens they pursued. Thus, I selected the glass call from my vest, made several soft yelps followed by a sequence of feeding clucks and purrs, and waited. After several minutes, I simply scratched the leaves, made three or four additional clucks, and then put the call away.
The minutes passed and all at once my peripheral vision picked up movement to my right. A lone gobbler had snuck silently into the adjacent hardwoods and was looking my way. The big Tom was walking and I could see that I would need to try to stop the bird in a small opening ahead of him if I was to get a shot. He seemed a good distance away, much farther than I was used to seeing a bird, but just as he entered my single narrow shooting lane I used my voice to cluck. The gobbler raised his head and stared in my direction, giving me just enough time to level my sights on his distant head and squeeze the trigger of the gun. He toppled over, but I stood and ran to the bird as quickly as possible, knowing that at what appeared to be 50 yards the shot pattern might have been too open to have inflicted a definitive blow. I arrived to discover the Tom was indeed still alive, but barely. I chambered another shell at 10 yards and finished the job quickly and humanely.
Upon catching my breath for the second time in the morning, I knelt beside the bird and admired his bright plumage. He was a trophy that far exceeded my expectations. With a thick 11-inch beard, spurs measuring more than 1½ inches, and an enormous body, he was an extraordinary specimen and I was as grateful for the opportunity to harvest such a creature as I was for the strength, determination, and luck that brought me up the ridge and into a position to have this encounter.
I packed the big gobbler, which I later weighed at nearly 30 pounds, as best I could into my turkey vest and began the long walk back to my truck. It was more than a mile away so I decided to take my time, enjoy the bright spring day, and reminisce about the last few mornings in the
Kentucky
woods.
My turkey season had begun at
4:00 a.m.
with a cup of coffee and the emptying of the vessel of life’s cares. It was now three days later and that same vessel was again overflowing, bubbling with the enchanted memories of misty mornings and thunderous gobbles piercing the spring air in triumph and revelry, filling my soul in a way that nothing else can and providing me a hunting homecoming that I will never forget.
Claudia’s Trip Notes:
Firearm:
Winchester
1300 NWTF special edition shotgun with custom choke.
Ammunition: Activ 5 shot shotgun shells
Optics: Leupold binoculars
Calls: Glass and diaphragm calls by HS Strut
Location:
Western Kentucky
