Busted! Turkey Tales of Woe

If you hunt gobblers long enough, you will get busted. A sure thing becomes a bad memory. I promise there is not a turkey hunter worth his salt who has not screwed up royally over the years – and never trust one who says otherwise.

I’ll never claim perfection. I’ve ruined enough hunts with bad decisions to even make such a remark, but at least I’ve come away with a lesson learned. Here are my Top 3 Gobbler Goofs (I could run this into the double digits, but would like spare myself some embarrassment).

3. Mr. Patience

I’d set up on the edge of a Florida oak hammock near a roost and dry wet-weather pond where I figured the birds would fly down. Morning came and not even a cluck. It was the first time I’d hunted this spot, but had plenty of reason to believe there was a gobbler in the area – I’d seen him on an earlier trip. Still, it was late in a warm season and gobbling activity had slackened, so I should have expected a quiet morning.

Impatience grabbed me early, though. I figured I could slip out to a cow pasture on the other side of the swamp and find a tom strutting.

I walked out to retrieve my decoys. As I returned to my oak-root seat to grab the rest of my gear, the gobbler was standing behind where I had been sitting, no doubt watching me get the dekes and shaking his head at this fool in the woods before high-tailing it, as only a gobbler can. But give it credit; the bird had more patience with me than I had for him.

Lesson Learned – It pays to have some faith in your set-up, especially late in the spring. Boss toms have an annoying habit of sneaking in quiet anyhow, but after the pressure of the season builds, they can go completely lockjaw. If you’ve done your scouting, located a bird and can exhibit just a bit more measure of self-control than you think you are capable of, you’ll probably get your tom, although it may not be the Made-For-TV moment of strutting and gobbling you expected.

2. Getting All Up In His Grill

If you’d watched gobblers constantly walk to this one tree to feed and strut, it’d make sense to sit under said tree to nail one, right?

One would think. I did such a thing. A huge oak sat in the middle of a 40 yard break between palmettos and a swamp bottom. Over the course of a couple mornings, we watched several toms strut right up to this tree and chase hens around before petering out into the cow pastures. I’d tried intercepting them on their way from the roost and on their way to the pastures with no luck. For some reason they keyed on this tree. They cared nothing about calls or decoys, and my set-ups were always just-too-far away from my kill zone.

Well, we’ll just solve that problem! One morning, a friend and I plopped down under the tree, deployed the decoys and waited. Sure enough, soon after the first crow caw a gobbler lit up, answering my calls and everything else – I could have thrown my box call against the tree and he would have gobbled.

He hit the ground gobbling and made his way to the tree. For some reason though, he held up.

Finally, I glimpsed back to see his head poking out of the myrtles, kinda like in Jurassic Park when the velociraptor kills the game warden – he was suddenly too close for comfort and knew something was up. He slowly backed up and gobbled his way to the swamp, out of view. I tried to re-position several times, but he was having none of it.

Lesson Learned – The tom knew trouble immediately. One, we were too close to where he roosted. He probably - I use “probably” since I don’t have a great grasp on any turkey’s deep thoughts and feelings - watched up set up, get adjusted, etc. Two, he and the other birds in the area had probably been following the same ritual every morning for a month. He may have been a talkative bird, but not a stupid one. To him, something’s wrong when he heard hens clucking at the base of the tree at first light. Three, me flipping my head around surely sealed the deal. He played cautious anyhow, circling us, but that movement no doubt iced the cake.

In hindsight, I could have set up on some trees by the palmettos within in shotgun range and been fine, but I wanted him to land in my lap. That mentality ignited every red flare in that bird’s consciousness. I guess the big lesson here is not to interfere with their habits. Stay just on the edge and out of their microscope.

1. The Big One

This incident still hurts, and it’s been 6 or 7 years by now. I’d set up in an oak hammock humbly named, “Ian’s Island.” A shallow creek separated it from the larger hammock, and I’d convinced myself it was the Promised Land.

Well, my dad hunted the big hammock, and I went to mine. After a quick sprinkle that refreshed the morning, a gobbler sounded off. Really, it bellowed – shook the raindrops off the leaves. Dad and I were at least 200 yards apart with the gobbler perched in the middle.

As luck would have it, the bird came my way, approaching from behind – seems all these stories sound the same – but separated from my ambush by the creek.

Now, we’ve all heard gobblers won’t cross fences, creeks, etc. The tom hadn’t read that. I had him gobbling and on a rope, but convinced myself he’d never cross that creek. Since I thought him to be the dominant male in the area, I pulled out my box call to gobble at him, hoping in desperation to challenge him across the water.

As it turned out, there was no need for this. I went to strike a gobble at him just as he showed up off my right shoulder. He was a big boy. And when he saw me hit the paddle and a half-gobble, half-car wreck noise wobbled out of the box, he hit the brakes and reversed course.

I tried to scoot over to get a desperation shot, but my vest has one of those fold-down seats that prevented me from standing or moving quickly. He ran straight through that creek and put it in the wind.

I shook my head all the way to the truck right up until now as I painfully recall this.

Lesson Learned – If a bird is coming to you, let him come. Don’t get too fancy. They won’t cross creeks? At least give him a chance to try. I’ve killed multiple birds that ducked under barbed wire which allegedly they won’t do either.

I swear the mortality rate of gobblers would be infinitely higher if hunters didn’t screw around so much. Call only as much needed to grab and hold his attention – if even that. I can almost guarantee a push-button call and 15 minutes worth of patience has laid more toms low than hurry and some “Screaming Eagle” metallic, marketing scheme of a call has.

Look, you will probably mess up one day. It happens. These birds are sharp which makes hunting them such an exciting challenge. Just try and avoid making them look any smarter than they already are!

TWL Classics - The Spot and Stalk Gobbler

Two years ago I started my volunteer outdoor writing service through a local newspaper's public blogging site. Unfortunately, through powers beyond my control, my archives from that source are gone and lost forever. Luckily, I saved rough drafts of my work on my computer, and once or twice a week I'll re-introduce a past column back into the wild of the World Wide Web. Enjoy!

Originally Published April 2008

To some, turkey hunting is a religious experience. Hunters develop a deep belief in the suitable manner of harvesting a tom - usually calling them into close range to dispatch with shotgun or bow. Reminds me of a line from A River Runs Through It - no one should be allowed to catch a fish unless they know how to fish. Or something like that.

Turkey hunters, like the fly fishermen in the movie, adopt that mentality as they gain experience. They then tend to get railroaded into the “proper method” for harvesting a tom. In a given camp, hunters preach and debate about the use of decoys, how old a bird must be to harvest it, which calls are the best – the list goes on, trust me, but each argument is assuredly spoken with hallowed conviction from the lips of the faithful.

Most would agree, a turkey hunt hits its climax as a gobbler struts into your attempts at calling. At that point, you’ve fooled Nature. You controlled – to a certain extent – the actions of a wild creature. It’s a unique experience that one never forgets, and to some, anything less is unworthy of the tom or the hunt.

I hear it all the time: “I won’t shoot a bird unless it struts and drums in the decoys, less than 15 steps, has gobbled at least a dozen times and paid due homage to my calling expertise.”



OK, I’m exaggerating a tad. I pride myself on the birds I’ve taken over the years that went something like what’s scripted above, but hunts rarely go as planned, and I’m not one to let opportunity pass me by.

The second bird I shot last weekend came against the Rules of Engagement generally agreed upon. We spotted and stalked him. Never an easy prospect made more difficult by his cohort of always-alert hens, another gobbler and some spooky cows, just for good measure. Lot’s of eyes and ears. I know several hunters who’d preferred trying to set up a decoy spread and call, or roost him later in the day for a chance the next morning. They’d never hop out of a truck and start some foolish quest of sneaking up on a bird with just about the sharpest set of senses in the woods.

The cool, clear early Friday morning arrived in sharp contrast to the wind and rain of Thursday. Nick dropped me off with instructions to sit on a distant treeline bordering a sod field. I had the whole north side of the ranch to myself, so if I heard any gobbles I could re-position, if necessary.

At 6:50, the first gobble – a deep, rolling call – echoed through the pines behind me. I waited until the second or third time he gobbled to post any response. He immediately replied to my slate, so I thought I was in business.

My failure in knowing the lay of the land would be my undoing. As the morning progressed, he’d respond to my yelps and purrs, but steadily moved away. I knew then he was probably henned up.

I picked up one hen decoy and rushed to circle around on him, thinking I was backed by woods, not a gigantic cow pasture. As I crossed a slough, the field came into view and the depressing realization that the bird was in the wide open hit me. I dropped down into a ditch and called, trying to get a bead on his location. He responded on the far edge of the field, now with another gobbler. Time to hatch a plan.

Using cow trails, I could stay out of sight and quietly run the border of a small pine island until I reached a point where the field sloped down to a point and re-deploy the dekes. Odd were they'd work that way before retreating into the cypress for the day. Worth a try, at any rate.

As I neared where I thought I wanted to be, a crusty hen call emanated from in front of me. It reminded me of a kid playing with a box call at Bass Pro or something. My immediate reaction was that I’d busted in on someone else’s hunt, and the call was the Unknown Hunter letting me know his position without spooking the birds.

Startled, I hauled rear back to my original set-up, angry and convinced I’d ruined someone’s morning. The excuse-making began silently as I stewed. I'd just met a lot of these guys. Would I ever be invited back? Certainly, there would be repercussions for a transgression such as this. I’d admonish another hunter who’d done something like that to me, for sure.

A text message to Nick explained my situation with instruction to retrieve me when ready. After he arrived, we collected my decoys, and he assured me no one was hunting there but me. It must have been a real hen call. So now I’d shifted from angry to feeling stupid. That pathetic wheezing hen threw a curve, and I bit badly.

Nick had no luck, but reported that he’d just passed a big gobbler in a field by a ranch road without spooking him – my bird it turns out, as I relayed my story of the morning. And sure enough, as we headed back to camp, he stood strutting with the other gobbler and his hens. They'd done what I thought they'd do, just too bad I was in the front seat of a Silverado and not posted on a pine.

Originally, I wanted to let them be and hunt him again in the morning, but there he stood for the taking. The worst that could happen is he’d spook. In most situations, I’d rather be aggressive and risk scaring him than not take a chance and wonder what could have been. Besides, on this huge place, toms were everywhere. If this one ran off we could find another no sweat.

On top of this, Nick’s brother, Trace, had come down from Gainesville the night before and needed to take a crack at one of the toms. That sealed our decision. We drove a couple hundred yards beyond the feeding birds to a cypress head we could use for cover. If we could stalk to the inside edge of this head without being seen, the birds would be in shotgun range.

We shed binoculars, loaded the shotguns and proceeded into the banana spider woods following cow trails, stepping deliberately to avoid cracking branches and underbrush. No calls, no noise, just sneak through the woods and whack one. Simple.

We picked through the shadows of the trees, until the bright sun shining in the field filtered back into view. And then, a gobbler fed into plain sight. When he’d turn, we’d creep inches closer, freezing if any bird or bovine suspected problems.

As it turned out, the cows proved the biggest challenge. We’d snuck well into range of the one bird and now had all the hens and the dominant gobbler – in full strut and drumming at his lady friend – in sight. But the cattle; can’t shoot the cattle, and they stood behind all targets of opportunity. Also, we had a chance at a double and needed to wait for both the cows to vacate and the toms to line up so each of us would have a clear shot.

The satellite gobbler would wander about, but the bigger bird stayed in strut, turning his attention only to the hen feeding beside him. After what seemed like an eternity, all the stars aligned - the cows moved, and the gobblers came in range. Trace had the drop on the bigger bird. I’d take the satellite.

On the count of three we shot, and I rolled my bird as Trace’s whirled at the blasts and flew off unharmed with his hens. In all fairness, Trace didn’t have a great window to shoot through - that didn’t stop the ridicule for the next couple days, however.

In all, the hunters in camp took 5 gobblers Friday morning. All had ropes for beards, weighed around 20 pounds with decent to excellent spurs. The other 4 birds came strutting into calls in the traditional manner of the sport.

Not many people get a chance to successfully stalk a gobbler. It’s a low success affair. Everything went perfect for us, other than the missed shot. The gobblers just happened to be close to some cover that we could stalk through without making a bunch of noise. They didn’t spook as trucks drove by. The dark shadows of the cypress where we crept and waited hindered the birds’ ability to see clearly as they fed in the bright sunlight; an overcast day and we’d been busted for sure.

Either of them could’ve easily been shot with rifles, legal in Florida, but ranch rules prohibit it, and I doubt I would have anyhow. By my tolerant nature, I have no qualms with others doing it, but the Turkey Hunting Gospel According Ian says it was not the fair thing to do in this situation. Not proper.

To the Lions or Whatever

Ahh, government in action! Kenya is racing to save their lions/tourist attractions from starvation due to a severe drought. Their plan of attack? More zebra!

Remember last week's post about introducing wolves into our National Parks as a solution to deer and elk overpopulation? Let's just bring the lions here. We'll knock out a couple problems at once! That oughta get some ranchers excited.

Anyway, here's the article. Thanks once again, AOL News - Kenya Rounds Up Zebras to Feed Starving Lions

Naturally, I have a few things to say about this.

If you add zebras to the park, won't they too die from the drought? How are they going to establish a breeding population? You might as well start tossing the lions steaks straight from the tourist lorry.

Notice, too, in both situations - National Parks and Kenya - we are dealing with areas that do not allow hunting.

BTW, for an animal that size, 2,000 - 3,000 lions sounds like alot. Probably wouldn't hurt matters to have their herds thinned out a touch.

Your Lease Options

Six years ago, responding to an ad in the Lakeland Ledger, I hit pay-dirt. Hunt club in SW Georgia needed new members. 2500 acres, lots of deer and turkey. I called the guys, asked a few questions and sent them the money, sight unseen. I got extremely lucky.

The hunt club folded the next year as the timber property that owned the land sold it. But, some of the guys I met proved to be excellent hunters, and better, easy people to get along with. They invited me onto another lease that I hunted another four seasons, collecting my best two bucks and a smattering of other game. Better still, I learned a ton about deer hunting from these guys.

Year 3 was tough, though. A couple of the originals moved on, and we needed some warm bodies in order to afford the lease. The newbies were nice enough, but there were some serious personality conflicts, to say nothing of a gap in hunting experience and methods.

Case in point, Georgia law says you can run corn feeders on your property, but must hunt 200 yards away and without a view of the feeder. Of course, we did use corn to attract deer to the lease. These guys did not want feeders at all, in the off chance they might happen to wander within 200 yards of corn at the same time a game officer would be in the area – the odds of this occurring was miniscule, especially when the gates were locked and one lawman was spread throughout four counties. They were rock-steady in their objections, and one meeting with them turned hostile. We eventually conceded – well, some of us did – and went about the season.

That wasn’t the only issue that tested my patience. All of us who had hunted this land used tree stands, placed them early in the season, and they didn’t move until January. The deer in these parts were extremely spooky and the less movement and human interference, the better. The new guys came and placed their stands in the middle of the rut and moved them constantly. When they failed to see deer from the stand, they wandered throughout the property. The results were predictable. A couple of them shot yearling does and jumped deer and hogs without getting a shot. As a result, by early December the lease was a ghost town.

By season’s end, I was frustrated and angry. The Others moved along to a different lease and that was that. Again, they weren’t horrible people; it’s just important to see eye to eye, or at least compromise, with others when you invest in a lease.

Lease and hunt club memberships should become available in the coming months. Here are a few tips to help you if you decide to fork out the cash.

1. Game Selection – My biggest irritation with the lease in Georgia was not being allowed to hunt turkey, which was very disappointing. I stayed on the lease because I enjoyed the company of the other hunters in camp, plus there was a legitimate chance of a Boone & Crockett buck walking out any minute. Also, I had a great wood duck hole that I hunted close to the end of season, and if I felt spunky enough, I could hunt coyote year-round. Turkey notwithstanding, the hunting opportunity return on my dollar was pretty high. If all you care about is deer, fine. But if you like some variety, ask fellow lease-members if they do any other kinds of hunting on the property, and whether it would be a problem if you did.

2. Doe Management – Seemingly everyone is moving towards some version of Quality Deer Management (QDM), and doe harvest is a key component of this practice. Georgia allows a hunter to take 10 does a year, which would’ve been excessive on our property. My first year in the club, we tried to establish a reasonable limit per person on does, with weight requirements and fines for shooting button bucks. No one was happy. I wanted a higher limit – which in hindsight was dumb because I only took one anyhow. One guy popped a button buck and balked at having to pay a fine because it was almost dark, and everyone’s made this mistake before, excuse, excuse. Think about this when you sign up; you’re more likely to have a chance at capping a few does than a huge buck anyhow.

3. Antler Restrictions – Speaking of QDM, this could be the biggest sticking point with lease and club members. The whole point of our original club was to let young deer walk, and I let a couple really nice bucks slip on by - ones that’d been deader than fried chicken in Florida - to achieve this goal. But that’s what I wanted. One guy in camp shot a young 8 with a spread that was close to, but not quite, the 15-inch minimum, or whatever we had established. He hadn’t shot many deer, and I didn’t want to take away his joy by imposing a fine, but those were the rules; let one person break them and it’s all over. If you decide to join a lease these days, you better know for certain whether or not you can live under such guidelines. I fully realize it’s hard to plop down cold hard-earned cash, hunt days on end without seeing anything only to let a nice deer that is so close to meeting the qualifications just walk away. Trust me, I do.

4. Food Plots – I didn’t start deer hunting to become a farmer. I personally don’t deal much with food plots. Don’t plan on it. Some guys on our lease did. Some enjoy planting community plots, and I don’t mind pitching in a few dollars for this. I know some properties require members to visit the land during the summer to work on brush clearing, planting food plots, and other such chores. Personally, I’m not spending any more on gas than I must for trips to till the land. I know adding food plots provides the deer with supplemental nutrition, contributes to antler growth, and makes for an easy stand location, but financially, my choices have always boiled down to either spending the money raising peas or spending the money to hunt without them. Easy for me.

5. Other Hunters – As I opened with, I got extremely lucky just tossing money at someone I’d never met, to hunt land I’d never seen. But, I didn’t do it completely stupid. I spoke with a couple different members of the club, asked about the land and game and expectations. This painted a fairly clear picture of who I’d be dealing with. None the less, it had the potential to be the worst blind date of all time. (As it turned out, I was the rube - a majority of the people very experienced hunters.) Still, it’s tough to judge personalities over the phone, and in that original group of fifteen, a couple guys rubbed others wrong. I’m easygoing to a fault at times and get along with most everyone. But in a hunting camp, you often have the issue of “I’ve spent my money, I can do what I want,” or “you’re hunting too close to me or walking around too much,” and just other alpha male nonsense that ruins the levity. Running with the wrong crowd will kill your season in a hurry. My advice is, get to know the other hunters in advance of paying the money – this is probably more important than seeing the land.

My experience with leases and clubs has been roundly successful. Due to financial concerns, I’ve been off that Georgia property for over year, though I missed it like the dickens this past fall. I got everything out of it I could’ve possibly wanted: big deer, new friends, and an escape in the fall. Sleep is hard when I think of it.

If you decide to join a lease or hunt club this spring or summer, make sure you do your due diligence - I got lucky this once. Not banking on that happening again

Wily Coyotes. Or, *&#$! Coyotes.

I am a master of all things hunting. Wait, let me qualify that. I am a master of all things hunting when compared to my coyote hunting “skills.” I have shot coyotes. I have called in coyotes. To date, I have not called in and shot a coyote.

This has been a nigh on 14-year quest. I bought a Lohman Circe rabbit-in-distress call when I was 16. It’s occupied every day pack, fanny pack and backpack since then, collecting lint, but nary a coyote pelt. It’s been wailed on from North Carolina to Colorado to South Florida and has done an excellent job pulling in fox, bobcat, crows, hawks, cows, deer, and one wild boar, yet only one coyote in South Carolina that circled through the brush and winded me.

I remember clear as day the first coyote I saw in Florida. Back in ’94 we were driving into a piece of private property early one morning to deer hunt in Manatee County when this big ol’ dog ran into the headlights. Today – and I’m not encouraging or endorsing this in anyway, kids – he probably would’ve have died in a hail of gunfire from either of the two in the front seat, but we were slack-jawed at the time. The yote just trotted in front of the Bronco, looking back to tease once in a while, then finally off into the imagination. Since then, the coyote has been a creature of mystique for me – of course, one smelly mutt I popped in Cedar Key about ended that.

A couple years ago I purchased a Johnny Walker digital call. Wait, that’s not right. Johnny Stewart digital call! Johnny Walker is what I drink to console myself after the hunt. Silly me. Out of sheer desperation, I also acquired a Mojo predator decoy that flips this cotton thing around in an attempt to distract incoming predators. Let me tell you something. Listening to that caller for more than 10 minutes will cause dementia and horrible, ghastly thoughts. It’s deranged, especially the fawn bleat that’ll almost make you want to join PETA. And watching the cotton ball device – while I believe the theory is sound – just reminds me how much I love to blow money.

This last weekend at Upper Hillsborough WMA, I put these last two toys to the test. My coyote calling-and-killing chastity remains sacred.

The dog came in from the right out of a sea of palmettos. Of course, this was off my wrong shoulder as I faced downwind overlooking a fire trail. I turned my head ever so slightly, and that was it. He spun back around and into that rattlesnake-infested oblivion. Stupid!

I hate to admit this, but aside from blasting the occasional one from a tree stand, that story pretty well illustrates my hunting experiences with coyotes. If I can beg a pardon from the Turkey Hunting Cult, I believe a gobbler is much more forgiving to movement than a coyote - a deer especially is. You know that old saying that if a turkey could smell you’d never see one? Well, guess what? You’ve just described the Southern Coyote. The parallels between hunting the two are striking. Calling to an animal in thick brush where calls only travel so far. Each animal has fantastic eyesight and hearing, and the coyote has the extra advantage of a functioning, no, superior olfactory system.

My strategy was to face downwind to intercept the dogs as they circle the source of the noise. Dad would guard the upwind side. Both of us carried 12 gauge 3 ½ magnums stoked with heavy turkey loads. The shotguns were perfect for this brush work in a small clearing of trails between a cypress head and aforementioned palmetto flat.

I’d hit the rabbit squealer button, and the card would play for about a minute. Then silence for five to ten minutes before hitting it again. I’d do this three times and move along. Well, this coyote came at the end of the third sequence. I was covered head-to-toe in a Scent-Lok ghillie suit, and he still saw just the mere twist of my neck from 60 yards away.

Coyotes have been in Florida now for a few decades, but the hunting literature has not caught up with them yet. I enjoy watching guys air them out on TV in places like Montana, but it’s a different ballgame in the South. Stay mobile and try new things. That’s about the best advice I can give. There are plenty of them here, but they are wicked smart.

I’ve been reasonably successful in most manners of hunting in which I’ve endeavored over the last 17 years. I’m not going to give up, but the coyotes about have me beat.

If anyone has any advice to share, please do.