Double Date

In early March, my mind was drawn to the thought of a mid 50 degree morning in the turkey woods. With this thought seeming to linger in my mind, I began making different loads and patterning my flintlock. 

This was the year it was all going to come together and I’d get my flintlock turkey. 

Days and weeks crept by and I kept having visions of smoke rolling out the barrel of that gun. Although it had seemed like a longer wait than usual, it was almost the start of the season. 

After a successful youth turkey hunt, my mind was in hyperdrive and I could hardly wait to get in the woods myself. 

I went to listen for turkeys on Monday morning and at the break of day found myself half a mile from the car as pheasants crowed and birds chirped. However, not one gobble broke the air. 

With a busy day ahead, I went and got coffee and my dad and I made our way into town to begin siding a house. 

I was about 20 feet up a ladder when that perfectly envisioned season seemed to drop out from under me just as the ladder had. I hit the ground and before I knew it, I was on a stretcher with a neck brace on getting a ride in an ambulance, which was followed by spending the rest of the day in the ER. 

What was left of the week was full of appointments and a surgery and when I woke up on Saturday morning, which just so happened to be the first day of the season, it was already 9 o’clock and I had no ability to hunt. 

The first week of the season went by and I began to feel a lot better. With a fractured radial head in my elbow, my arm was splinted and in a sling. The left side of my face was also broken and I knew if I was hunting at all I was going to be trapped in a blind and needed shooting sticks. 

I also was unable to use the flintlock I had planned to use and had to use my over and under 410. To prevent further damage to my face, I had to shoulder the gun on my right side and pull the trigger with my left hand. 

It was not at all how I pictured I would be hunting, but it was better than many of the alternatives I could have faced. However, I couldn’t sit inside the house anymore.

My girlfriend had never hunted turkeys before but got a license and agreed to take me since her college classes had just ended. 

We hunted all week, having the same turkeys within shotgun range twice and never being able to seal the deal. 

We listened Friday night and never heard a gobble and made a deal that if the turkeys didn’t happen to be near when daylight broke, we were going to escape the blind and make a move on them. 

We made it into the blind at about 4:30AM and no gobbles were heard as it began to get light. I stepped out and owl hooted, the turkeys gobbled probably 400 yards away and although I wanted to hard charge through the woods and set up on them, something told me not to. 

So, we made a plan that if they flew down and didn’t come our direction, we would jockey ourselves into position on them elsewhere. 

They gobbled once after fly down and sounded closer. Silence ensued and I had a feeling they were coming onto the top we were set up on because of the rain that had occurred throughout the night. With the birds having hens all week I didn’t want to call until they were close being that the hens were not into confrontation and would take them the opposite direction.

A crow cawed directly overhead and the top seemed to shake as they gobbled within 100 yards of us. I let out a soft yelp, with no response. I knew they had heard it and all we needed was for them to move just a little so they could see the decoy. 

The same crow cawed again and the birds gobbled just over a knob closer than before. I yelped and clucked softly again, paused for a few seconds and then yelped again. They once again didn’t gobble and I looked out the window and saw them heading our direction; this was what I was waiting for.

I told Sara to click off her safe and I got my gun on the shooting stick. They disappeared behind us and the crow cawed again. This time, they gobbled so close my heart skipped a beat or two. The silence of the wet leaves left us questioning exactly where they were. 

As I turned my head they were running to the decoy. With their beards swinging viciously they instantly began flogging the decoy. 

It was like a bad dream for a minute as they dipped and weaved around the decoy and just as they would both stop, I would begin my count and they would begin moving again. 

Finally they paused, the two bright red heads both up in the air. It almost didn’t seem real when I counted from three and actually made it to one without them moving. The guns barked in such sync that only the small streams of smoke rolling out the barrels confirmed both had gone off. 

The birds both flopped and I jumped up in amazement we had just killed a double. I gave her a one armed hug and said “we just killed a freaking double!” as we fist bumped. 

We got out and walked up to the birds and it still felt almost unreal. 

I looked at the clock and it was only 6:09 AM. The turkey season that I had thought was never going to happen for me in the back of that ambulance had just ended in one of the best ways I could’ve imagined. 

We took pictures and watched as the sun began to break over the trees on the next ridge. We waited with anticipation for the sun to give us some good pictures.

With the pictures stowed in the photo app on our phones, we began walking out, ending our double date with a couple longbeards.