It’s been a long hard and difficult season for the great majority of the long suffering gobbler hunters. Perhaps a sweeping epidemic of extreme laryngitis struck the Tom’s, but gobbling has been sparse and many birds who did gobble refused to be enticed within range.
Those who value their time and are inclined to look at win/loss sheets have given up, two weeks without any action strongly hints your time may be best spent doing something else, anything else!
However, there are those who enjoy the torture of early rising, long fruitless walks, futile setups and a gradually increasing melancholy which soon blossom’s into an over whelming black, manic depression. If you’re not nuts when you begin hunting turkeys you soon will be.
Joe Paulik and Kevin Burrits enjoy pain evidently. When they’re not hunting spring gobblers they amuse themselves in their spare time by pounding their thumbs with hammers, ah, it feels so good when you stop!
The third week of gobbler was perhaps the worst of the season, but this week for unknown reasons gobbling began again and Joe’s failing hopes began to burn a little brighter.
Rechecking a bird he’d located in the preseason, he heard him gobbling once again. And so it was that he and Kevin found themselves trudging up yet another hill in the pitch blackness hoping something might actually happen.
Just below the point they hooted hoping the turkey might answer and reveal his position. To their surprise and delight, he gobbled at 5:10 a.m. Still dark enough to move closer unseen, the two hunters spread out on the hillside. Joe was about 60 yards uphill of Kevin. This setup gave them the best chance to catch the bird they felt if he skirted downhill.
Now they simply waited, cooling down from the climb and wondering if this might really be the day something happen. Time was running out.
At 6:10 a.m., wings flapped and whined as the gobbler pitched down and Joe did his best to sound like an interested hen. The gobbler answered his calls immediately and after 10 minutes Joe saw the big bird angling down the hill above him just out of range. The cagey Tom curved to his right and then began moving below Joe just out of range right into Kevin’s setup.
Joe was waiting with baited breath as the bird hit the old trail that lead right into Kevon’s sights. Nothing is for sure in turkey hunting, many things could still go horribly wrong, the tension growing and growing. Then the morning stillness was shattered by a shot and both hunters leaped to their feet and ran to the turkey, Kevin aim was true.
Kevin elatedly measured a 10-inch beard, one-and-an-eighth inch spurs and a weight of 19 pounds and five ounces. That’s a beautiful turkey in anyone’s book.
Joe and Kevin high-fived and were talking excitedly in low tones when another gobble shook the forest close to them.
What? They looked at each other astonished!
Another gobbler still interested even after the shot? Holy crow, this was really unusual. But, this was time for instant action, not amazement and both men rushed to hurriedly setup once more.
This second gobbler was about 100 yards across the hillside and 75 yards above them. The bird gobbled at their calls and in five minutes was seen cautiously moving closer. Then a sharp alarm putt, he’d seen the other gobbler lying on the road and veered away. Though alarmed, he was still interested and gobbled again. The game of cat and mouse had begun.
Kevin was about 80 yards below Joe and doing most of the calling, but the gobbler wasn’t completely buying it. From 6:15 to 9:20 a.m., he moved back and forth just out of sight. This game of chess was rapidly becoming a stalemate.
Joe knew he had to do something and taking a risk he rose, moved away from the turkey sneaking up and over the point dropping down to the same level setting up in a small patch of woods beside a field fence line.
The gobbler was hanging in the woods, using the field as a buffer between him and the hunter’s original position. From his new set up Joe called very softly on his slate and the gobbler moved closer and into sight in the wood patch.
The Tom stopped at maximum range, turned, walked deeper into the woods, then returned to the field edge looking carefully, repeating the process several times. As he moved back and forth he passed behind a large tree.
Deciding the gobbler wouldn’t come closer Joe reevaluated the range. Picking a tree at 15 yards he saw the turkey was about three of those segments away. When the turkey passed behind the large tree he raised the shotgun, made sure no brush or grass was in the way to disrupt his pattern he aimed carefully and when the gobbler hit the field edge and raised his head, Joe squeezed the trigger.
He was using a 3.5-inch magnum with Federal No. 5 shot and at the shot the bird dropped. Kevin came busting out of the woods and both delighted men celebrated scoring a double so late in the season. Joe’s bird weighed 22 pounds and had a double beard with 1.25-inch spurs. A monster gobbler for sure.
Turkey hunters –– no doubt they’re crazy, but they’ll also be the first to tell you at times like this the agonies worth it.
