Adventures Outdoors'

IN WISCONSIN

It was 4:30 pm in the turkey woods, when my 13 year old son Sean asked if we could leave the blind and stalk back to the truck. Turkey hunting closes at 5:00pm and Sean was hoping we’d see something on the way to the truck. We hadn’t had any action all day and we were hot, tired and a little bored.

Sean didn’t shoot a turkey the previous year but did get a shot at a bird when we were returning to the blind from a walk. We came back to find a huge Tom having his way with our hen decoys I accidentally forgot to take with us (that’s another story).

Taking a walk isn’t a bad idea, since we haven’t seen a Tom all day and it was an unusually hot week in April. We drew the first week this year in Wisconsin and normally its windy, cold, raining or snowing. But not this year. Although nature didn’t bombard us with mosquitoes the size of B-52’s, it still was hotter than we would like.

I said "Sean, just as soon as we get up over that ridge two Toms will come into our strutting field. We better wait it out". Well Sean wasn’t too happy about sitting in the hot blind for another 30 minutes until close, but said "ok". I told him to keep an eye on the opening in the fence to our right; I’ve seen turkeys come through there before.

We were set back into the woods about 5 yards from the edge of an alfalfa field on top of a large hill on a northwestern Wisconsin farm, hunting out of a game tracker camo tent hunting blind. We had three hen decoys and one jake, each placed in a line at 20 yards in the field. The field was large (over 100 acres) but had nice pockets in it that sucked into the woods creating natural funnels the birds liked to use as strutting areas. The area although desolate did get average hunting pressure. Myself and family have ourselves taken eleven birds from these woods in the last 5 years.

I started to nod off but my watch told me another ten minutes have gone by and it was time to call again. I placed the diaphragm call back in my mouth and began a series of yelps, clucks, and cuts. With only 20 minutes left before closing Sean and I threw everything we had at the seemingly empty woods. Box calls, slates, tube calls, fighting purrs, and mouth calls. Just as I was thinking maybe we should have taken that walk towards the truck, "gaabbooloobalabala", right from the exact opening in the fence I had told Sean to watch, yes two toms came marching through.

All the noise we made definitely got these guys stirred up. One of the toms was in full strut and the other was just standing tall. They were 75 yards out and steadily walking our way.

Well I got just about everything right. We stayed, they came through the opening I thought they would, and there was even two of them. A couple clucks won’t hurt. They kept coming, a couple yelps wont hurt, they kept coming, now 60 yards out, lets pour it all out, lets do the never fails cutting. 50 yards out and they stopped. Oh, oh.

I looked up put the 12 gauge extra full turkey choke with a load of 3 inch Remington nitro magnum number 4’s on the bird to the right. "Sean can you get on the bird to the left". "No" Sean said. The birds have stopped, I probably could kill the one on the right, but then Sean again would be bird less.

I tried some soft purrs. When that did nothing, except make them take a couple steps away from us, I tried some demanding hen cutts. I noticed a hen come out of the same opening the toms had come from earlier. She had her head straight up standing motionless. The two toms were also standing in the same position. Then I heard it. "goobblleeaabalaba". Oh, no. Another tom is going to screw this up.

Ok with 10 minutes left till close about 150 yards out in the middle of the field out of nowhere appears, yes two more toms. Apparently these toms are going to try and steal the strutting field away from our toms. The toms by us immediately start running towards the newcomers. All four are gobbling continuously. And of coarse I’m still cutting on my diaphragm call. The hen watches all this for about a minute and then decides she wants no part of this machoism and hi tails it back through the opening in the field.

The two toms that left us were noticeably larger than the two newcomers, and when they met head on feathers started flying. The belly butting fight ended in about 10 seconds with the new guys running away to our left and the big guys chasing after them. The two big guys now strutted in victory lane in the middle of the field not going to move from their end zone. The new guys were no where to be seen.

5 minutes left and I began packing up, occasionally looking up at my lost thanksgiving feast. Only being able to see out the right and front windows in the blind, I told Sean to see if he could see anything out the left window. Sean said "Dad, their back, coming right at us". I looked up only to see the still strutting giants 150 yards out. I said "Sean, those are the same turkeys still strutting out there". Then Sean said " really, I didn’t know we put the decoys out that far". "What do mean decoys", I said. Sean replied, "Their right next to the decoys". Not being able to see out the left window it seemed the new guys had played a little trick on the older toms and snuck in on the now all alone decoys. They crept with their heads down and beards dragging on the ground without the big toms seeing them.

I whispered to Sean "I have to shoot left handed out your window; aim for the one on the left and I’ll get the one on the right". "Ready, take your safety off, are you on him?" "I think so" he replied. "Ok ready, one, two, three", BANG,,,BANG,BANG.

"I missed" I said while seeing Seans bird hit but still running. The bird I shot at twice (left handed) was unscathed and took to the sky. I slide over towards Sean put the gun on my right shoulder, the bird being about 5 or 6 feet in the air, I aimed about a foot over the bird and BANG, rolled him over in the air. He laid there not moving on the ground. I yelled to Sean get out there and get after your bird. Like a bolt of lightning Sean shot out of the blind and was halfway to the place he had shot the turkey when I yelled back at him "hey Sean, you’ll need your gun". In all the excitement he had forgot he only wounded his bird.

Sean and I now both out of the blind walked out to where he had shot the bird and a huge sense of loss came over us. While seconds earlier feeling unbelievable success, now we were bummed. Being this early in April in Wisconsin that far north, we could see hundreds of yards in the woods. No turkey. Wait look 10 feet in front of us under that log, there he is, BANG, Sean’s turkey was dead. "What time is it Sean", I asked. Sean replied, "Dad its 4:59pm. My turkey weighed 19 pounds with a 9 inch beard and half inch spurs, Sean’s turkey (his first) weighed 23 pounds and had two beards one 10 inch and another at 4 inches with half inch spurs. These birds were probably year and a half old birds but sure outsmarted the bigger toms. And that was just fine with us.

We went from hi to low several times in those 20 minutes.

But wait just a minute, as we walked back to the truck carrying our birds I felt a huge sense of de’jav’ue. Had I encountered this before in another life. Hold on a second I thought, my older son Cory and I were turkey hunting this same field back in 2001, and yes the toms came, and left, and came back, and we did the one, two, three bang, bang, bang. And yes, Cory’s bird ran off wounded, and yes we found it and shot it, and oh ya, Cory’s even had two beards. Three years apart two sons and there Dad hunting turkeys had nearly the same hunt. As fathers day approaches me I think back and know, it just doesn’t get any better then that de’jav’ue memory.

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