Flint and Feathers

After having a close call with a gobbler Thursday morning, I knew I had to unload my flintlock and get it all cleaned and spiffed up. Not wanting to leave anything to chance.

So after pulling my load, making some new wads of shot, and getting my flint chipped, I felt prepared for the following morning. 

Morning came and I made it to the field edge where we had our encounter the prior morning and I placed out my hen decoy and found a tree. 

I stood and poured the powder down the barrel and then followed it with my mixture of wads with shot sandwiched in between as birds chirped, geese honked, and a pheasant cackled in the distance.

I sat down and took in the cool morning air as a turkey gobbled straight in front of me down along a creek bottom. I knew he had been roosting behind me, but obviously, he didn’t want our morning to go as I was anticipating.

I knew at that point that I was not going to connect with him in the field. 

About half an hour after fly-down I just happened to look a little to the left through the thick brush on the field edge and could see him strutting right on the break of the hill. However, that was short-lived as he stepped out of the little gap I could see through and disappeared. 

He and his hen made it back over into the bottom though as he began to gobble. I knew this was unusual for him as he usually only would gobble in the tree and be done for the day as he always had a group of hens with him. 

I knew I had to capitalize and began yelping as a hen responded to me and ultimately was driven back to him by the threat of another hen. I gave it some time and he began to gobble once again and I knew I had to move to get above him as he was coming up out of the bottom going away from the field. But when I yelped to check where exactly he was, a hen yelped right where I needed to move to and I knew I just had to wait him out. 

They faded off without any trace, but I knew they had been cutting across a top and figured I could catch them on their way back. I set up and I heard him gobble going the other way so I dropped down over into where he had just come out of thinking I might be able to coax him back over into there. 

He began a gobbling spree again as his hen once again had put some distance on him and I called and he quickly answered but was still dead set on sticking with her. 

I knew I had to make a move now as they were in a different field and if I could get in front of them for a change I might have a better chance. I was just about running as I dodged through branches knowing that this was going to be my best chance of the day. 

I got to where I thought they were heading but was skeptical that they were going to drop into the other creek bottom just below where they were going. 

I made it to the woodline, which was filled with old dirt piles, and I knew I had to drop my hen decoy there. After getting the decoy out of my back and placing a mental note of its location.  I began to sneak through trying to put eyes on the field and just as I thought they were gone, I saw the hen about 40 yards away. 

I waited till she began to feed and slowly knelt down and began to look around as I saw a little hump with a bush on it about 5 yards behind me. It wasn’t ideal but it would have to work as I began crawling back to it. 

Once I made it and got the gun laid out in front of me, I crept my head up just enough to see her and I scratched the leaves with my hand. Instantly her head shot in the air and she began to walk towards me.

I cocked the gun and wiped the sweat off my forehead hoping that the gobbler was coming behind her. 

I could hear the leaves under her feet and she began clucking trying to find the turkey she had heard. 

He gobbled and was down almost at the bottom where I expected them to go. The steady crunch of leaves passed me at about 25 yards but for whatever reason I was never able to see the hen. I had figured he would follow her and suddenly he gobbled right in front of me. I gave it a few minutes and didn’t hear any more leaves crunching. 

However, I did hear a gobble a couple of hundred yards down in the original creek bottom right in the direction they had just headed as they passed me. 

I knew I was going to have to move again. As I made it back to my hen decoy I took off my jacket and threw it down, desperate that I would be able to get around him.

There was about a 6-foot-tall bank I had to climb to get over and as I started up it, leaves crunched under my feet. 

A gobble put me on my knees as he wasn’t the one that had gobbled at all but was only about 40 yards away just out of sight. 

I got situated laying on the back of the bank with the gun across the top of it. I tried to scratch the leaves and keep my body from sliding down the bank, but gravity was seeming to win our match.

I could hear him spitting and drumming and I knew it was only a matter of time. I scratched the leaves and he gobbled, the process ensued and as his drumming began to get closer other turkeys gobbled to my right. 

I knew I had to play the card they’d just given me and began yelping to them. They gobbled as did the one I was hunting. 

They were red hot as every gobble was way closer than the previous. I could finally hear them in the leaves and quickly saw them running full sprint straight toward the original gobbler. 

They both began to chase him and I saw all their heads coming in my direction. Once they separated him from his hen, they had quit chasing him and he was walking and clucking coming straight at me, hoping to seek asylum with the hen he had thought he heard.

He came into the opening right where I pictured he would, only under different circumstances. He stopped as I put the sights on him I realized the short grass wasn’t so short as only bits and pieces of red could be seen. I lifted my head a little to ensure he was in fact still there as I had lost him behind the sight and as I came down on the sights the second time I fixated on a sliver of red and touched off the trigger. 

Smoke rolled and as I tried to jump up, I began sliding down the bank. I regained my footing and made quick work of getting over the bank. As I cleared the top of it my eyes were filled with the sight of a flopping turkey. I quickly got to him and as the sting of black powder hung in the air, my hands were filled with the legs of a longbeard.