Nick and I were slipping through a vein of cottonwoods along a creek bottom that dissected two large crop fields, advancing on a distant roosted gobbler that had betrayed his
presence to Nick's owl hoots. The morning having cleared from a full
day before of rain that had softened our footsteps, we came to a bit
of a stopping point. Nick hit the locator again and another gobbler
fired up right on the edge of the field in front of us.
Then I saw a bird fly into the open.
We immediately found shelter against
cottonwood trunks, not having time to wrestle decoys from our vests.
Nick yelped a few times, and the tom's response was immediate and
resolute - he was coming in. At 6:19 a.m., with the gobbler pacing in
front of me at 20 yards, that morning's hunt had been the easiest
part of this adventure - even that was almost screwed up.
Located in Independence, Kansas in the
southeast part of the state near Coffeyville, Nick had been living at
his family's farm while finishing school nearby. It took him visiting Florida in mid-March and a cocktail-infused evening around my firepit to dream up this hunt. The farm had been in Nick's family
for generations, and despite numerous invitations over the years, I'd
just not been able to coincide time with funds. We poured over the
logistics of a late-April hunt, and after staring at my pennies and securing permission from my
patient, turkey-widow of a wife, Harris and I booked
tickets with Allegiant out of St. Pete on the 26th to join Nick for a weekend turkey getaway.
Now, everyone who knows me knows I'm terrified of flying, but some trips can't be passed up. As it turned out, the majority of my
angst occurred while still on the ground. Despite living in Florida
my whole life, I failed to recognize St. Pete had an airport. I'd
always flown out of Tampa or Orlando. For whatever reason, Google
Maps directed us to a tiny airport in downtown St. Pete. Realizing
something was wrong, I ran into a terminal with roughly the
square-footage of an average Cracker Barrel and hurriedly questioned
the lady behind the counter where I could find the correct airport.
Seemingly having been asked this on numerous occasions, she gave me the proper directions. Thank God, too. I wasn't getting on any of those
Tic-Tac container-sized “airplanes” littered across that tarmac. So we were uncomfortably behind schedule as we strolled into St. Pete International.
With the worry of missing our flight and spending our hard-won free time at the Hard Rock Casino in Tampa, it was disheartening to see crowds of travelers stuffed within aisles waiting to check-in. I'm not sure what kind of crafts or flannel
shirt convention was happening in the Springfield, Missouri area where we would hopefully land in a few hours, but
there were deep, winding lines of folks,
and with the boarding call closing
in fast, our odds of seeing Kansas diminished further. Luckily, Harris had purchased priority boarding but had forgotten about it. Upon realizing this bold strike of fortune after ten minutes in line, he was able to call me up to bypass the masses and drop bags with just enough minutes left to clear security and sit at the bar for a pre-flight
nerve tonic which turned out being extremely helpful for my anxiety.
After boarding and feeling pretty good about having made it in time, we were getting settled in our seats when a guy trying to stuff his over-sized carry-on into the overhead
compartment blew a fluorescent bulb and sprayed glass on and around
all of us good people sitting near the emergency exits. I think I handled it well. I don't remember screaming, but I don't suppose many do when their lives flash before their eyes.
Let me clue you, the pop of a bulb, the
tinkling of glass, and the faint smell of ozone attracts some
attention within an airplane. It took 6 airport
employees to handle this situation: 1 to see there was a problem; 1
to diagnose the problem; 1 to discern how to fix the problem; 2 to
clean up the problem; and 1 to report the problem and tell the guy he
owed forty bucks to check his bag. I leaned over and told Harris that if anything
else happened, he'd be going solo.
But, we landed in Springfield without
further issue beyond the delayed arrival and me being on the far side
of comfortably numb. The weatherman was the one who threw a wrench in
the issue now. The forecast had called for warm and sunny for the
entirety of the trip. We landed in a cold drizzle that lasted through
the first day of hunting. We tried a couple of set-ups Saturday
morning but with no gobbles, the cows laying down and vultures
roosted, it was evident that the only thing we'd be getting on this day was
pneumonia. It was decided we should pull up stakes, grab a hot lunch
and watch lucky hunters chase gobblers in Kansas via DVD.
As the rains eased later in the afternoon,
we took a drive around the property. In this part of Kansas, the
turkeys are a Rio Grande/Eastern hybrid. Some gobs have more of one
subspecies characteristics than others, but we were in the state's
designated intergrade zone which made for a unique trophy. Fascinating, too, was Nick's description
of hunting this area. He maintained that gobblers were often a
here-today, gone-tomorrow prospect. And while he received a weekend's
ration of commentary and jokes about migrating turkeys, it did make
some sense.
See, the property we were able to hunt
totaled 400-500 acres. In parts of Florida I'm used to hunting,
400-500 acres is dominated by swamps with little clearings and fields
toms are attracted to. Navigation through such areas is tricky even for game animals. There are a lot of obstacles that dictate habits. Even on wide-open properties where occasional
cypress heads, pine stands, or oak hammocks comprise the only
vertical landscapes, Osceolas typically return to the same roosting
areas. Also, one has to consider the fragmentation of land in Florida by development and roads and whatnot; turkey populations are, generally speaking, squeezed together - Kansas, not so much. They are free and clear to travel, impeded by very little from what I saw. The turkeys on this and adjacent properties will apparently follow deep creek
bottoms for miles picking new places to fly-up each evening. It's why locating and roosting birds in the evenings is an important strategy here, not something I worry
about too much in the Sunshine State.
And while I don't want to place too much
emphasis on the habits of an individual bird and how that translates
into a whole subspecies, this gobbler did everything I would not expect
from an Osceola. One was the fly-down time: 6:15 in the morning. I
can't recall a Florida tom ever arriving that early – heck, most of
the birds I worked this season didn't touch the ground until well
after 7. Two, there was a hen calling from the edge of the same
field, and he left her and that opening to come to us, crossing a deep ditch
- almost a ravine – along the way. I still can't reconcile that.
Perhaps that other bird we heard was the dominate animal, and homeboy
knew it. We'll never know, but I credited Nick's calling because I'd
like to be invited back one day. Three, the gobbler stayed in range
while I buffooned with the shotgun.
For starters, everything happened so
quickly that I failed to put a round in the chamber. Doing so with an incoming gobbler is a real trick of the
pros - said no one ever. Fortunately Nick had, and I escaped without the clatter of fully racking the pump. Then, I'm sure you've heard the mantra,
“Don't go into battle with an unproven weapon?” Well, many folks
over the years have dusted gobblers with the Mossberg pump Nick
loaned me, but I was unfamiliar with the use of the red-dot scope
mounted on it. Since we didn't place decoys, the gobbler was pacing
along the ditch searching. He wouldn't stay still, and I could not
pick him up in dawn's low light with the short field-of-view incumbent with
those scopes. He alarm-putted once, and I knew I'd have to get my
stink together or catch Hell in camp for the remainder of the
weekend. He walked behind a tree, and as he did, I focused the red
dot on the trunk. When he stepped out the other side, I moved the
reticle slightly to the left and under his chin and crumpled him at
35 yards to save the day. He wasn't hanging out any longer.
Weighing in at 22 pounds with a 9
1/2-inch beard, Nick and I performed the ritual high-fives and
recount of the events that occurred We laughed that the walk in and back
took four times as long as the hunt. With the rains history and the
temperature warming during a bluebird day, we calculated the gobblers
were going to go gangbusters and more gobblers would meet this one's fate, but it wasn't to be. Harris,
unfortunately, didn't hear much. A mid-morning hunt wasn't any more
productive, and Nick was unable to roost any birds that evening. With great friends, you'd like to see everyone have a chance to pull the trigger.
But that's just turkey hunting - everyone present knew that. We were lucky to have the one in hand. And despite the travel and weather woes,
with the company kept and the beauty of Southeast Kansas, it's a trip
worth doing a 1000 times over.
Maybe we'll catch that migration one day.
