Spring -- Wild Flowers & Wild Tom Turkeys!

 

Wild Geranium At Base of Dead Tree

     Now near the end of spring, I've been remiss in writing about the dead awakening into new life. The last six days I've been hunting the Wild Turkey on a friend's woodlands. I spent over twenty springs hunting wild turkeys in the Mark Twain National Forest in Missouri. Way before that Missouri hunt started, back when there were only isolated populations of wild turkeys remaining in America I recall vividly my first sighting of a wild gobbler.

Lord of the Woods Strutting His Stuff!

     Just a boy of thirteen on the edge of Brown County State Park in southern Indiana. Deer season, gun in hand I'd climbed a steep ridge in the dark to await the dawn. I'd hardly slept the night before as visions of huge bucks, twelve point racks or more leapt passed me as I raised the gun. The dawn had come slowly illuminating the large oak trees around me. A large fox squirrel climbed up to a low limb then stretched out. With fat lolling over each side of the limb that squirrel lazily watched me, knowing I had bigger game in mind. Shortly the shooting started. First a few solitary shots then more as it grew lighter. Facing down slope I stood beside an oak and waited expectantly for the big buck to show up. Instead I heard a squawking on the opposite ridge watched as a large black bird rose skyward then turn toward me to glide down, land with a thump in the dead leaves. Red head, wattle and beard ran passed me as my jaw dropped to my knees. I knew from pictures and articles in sporting magazines that the wild turkey no longer roamed the ridges of Indiana. That Tom must have been part of an early experiment to restore the wild turkey to former habitats. That dawn happened fifty-eight years ago. Fast forward to now. Every state has an abundance of wild turkeys due to hunters interest, their money and the development of techniques to reintroduce the wild turkey to lands where market hunting and loss of habitat had eliminated it. A tremendous conservation success fueled by hunters' love for our largest game bird. 

    In over twenty years of spring turkey hunting that started after I left college, no they didn't kick me out, I actually graduated, proof that  miracles happen. Did you know that a wild turkey is a pea  brain. Literally the turkey brain is the size of a pea. Doesn't seem fair or sporting for a human with a three pound brain, college educated at that, armed with a shotgun to hunt a wild turkey. Does that Tom out in the woods gobbling its head off, puffing itself up to strut and impress the hens have any chance against a fully camouflaged hunter? The answer based on the data says actually yes. Only about 20 percent of turkey hunters harvest a wild turkey in Wisconsin. The odds favor the turkey. Makes a person wonder about the necessity of carrying around a three pound brain if a pea brain has better odds of survival. 

                                

Blue Jay & Turkey Feathers on a Stump

    To elaborate a bit, my first ten years of hunting Toms yielded one potential success, I had started a book titled One Hundred & One Ways to Screw Up a Turkey Hunt.  Oh man, true confession, those details might bore the nonhunting readers some of whom may even be veg-table-tarians. People who eat only vegetables which are easy to catch, clean and simple to cook. People with a success ratio of one hundred percent. I mean how can they relate to someone who only succeeds about 20 percent of the time. 

Pheasant Back Mushroom

    That's beside some point, in fact my one potential success, the book on How-to-Not Succeed in Turkey-Hunting also failed. After ten years of hunting and screwing up numerous chances at harvesting a wild Tom the unexpected happened. I started seducing the Tom's with my raspy call, even succeeded in the final act of the hunt successfully pulling the trigger. This sidetracked and delayed my writing career tremendously. Yes, I actually began to get a turkey every year, or nearly so. One year I harvested two Toms. 

Arrow Wood in Bloom

    One of you thoughtful readers might be thinking, 'Couldn't you have written about the first ten years. Not confessed that you'd actually begun to have success?'

     Truth being my guiding light even though thorny at times, I could not portray myself as a complete failure without exaggerating, maybe even engaging in a white lie.

    Deserved or not success killed my chance at fame. For highly successful turkey hunters already existed. These hunters  made sweet seductive turkey calls on late night talk shows. They won calling contests. They sold calls with their names on them. They sold how to books. They recorded videos of successful hunts. They started clothing lines of camouflage hats, jackets, pants, face masks, face paints and of course gloves. A fashion** industry catering to hunters. And they always got their Tom! No way could I compete with these high powered pros. None of whom bothered to or needed to have a college education. There may be a moral here!

    I am one of the last of that group of Turkey Hunters still walking the rolling hills and valleys of this earth. Most of my companions have long since gone on to what comes next. But I wrote a poem in an attempt to capture and honor that yearly spring experience in the hills and ridges in Missouri. 

Hazel Creek Memories!

(In the Mark Twain National Forest in Missouri)

Hazel Creek memories;

Hardwood embers

That glow…., 

Long after 

The fire’s out;

Spring fed

Water flows,

Curves and cuts

Through 

A wild green valley,

Gives ground

To forests

That ride ridges

To ripple 

The sky;

Over twenty years

We hunted 

Wild turkey

When wildflowers

Carpeted banks

In a mosaic

Of blue, white, yellow

And pink,

Growing over rock,

Wet brown 

Winter leaves;

Camped

In a big bend

Made by the

Meandering creek,

After hunting

All morning

Stripped naked,

Shivering we

Washed and bathed,

Finally to immerse,

In nature’s

Baptismal font,

Erupt to

Hoot and holler

Like boys

From school 

Let out;

Restored,

Renewed,

Reinvigorated

We gathered 

Around a table

Under a

Blue canopy

Of sky

Made 

Just

For a hunter’s 

Heavenward eye,

To pray in fellowship

Before sitting down 

To feast

On 

As holy, 

A holy communion,

As ever was

Or 

Will be.

     

     On the fourth day of this years hunt I did nearly everything right. I sat down against the bole of a large oak tree with a cushion under my butt and one between my back and bark of the tree. Gun on my lap I pulled out my trusty slate call breathed in then exhaled before imitating the yelp of the wild hen turkey. I put the call in my pocket and waited. Shortly a gobbler in front of me cut loose. Then another mature bird to my right also gobbled long and lustily. I waited.... and waited with my heart rate starting to rise. I knew I needed to be coy. I needed those Toms to come to me. They gobbled again now a bit closer. Still I waited. Suddenly I heard a noise just off my left shoulder, I turned to see a deer swap ends and go pounding up the hill. Was I screwed again? Would that flushed deer scare off the Toms. I waited to let things quite down, all the while a chorus of morning bird song kept me company, helped quiet my beating heart. Finally I made another call. Immediately the Tom nearest me now a little to my left opened up. The Tom double gobbled. I knew that bird was coming in. The adrenalin began coursing through my veins my heart beat rose another notch. I peeked through the honey suckle bush between me and the turkey. A lane ran up the hill maybe the Tom would walk down the lane. The Tom gobbled again even closer. Yes, yes, he was coming in. I waited and watched and watched and waited gun at the ready. Finally I saw him stick his head and neck out from behind another honeysuckle bush. I raised the gun. The Tom make a subtle sound. Had he seen the movement? I quickly aimed then fired. Rose as fast as possible to look for feathers. Saw two jakes that had been following him start up the hill. I already knew the shot had been a clean miss. I had not seated the gun well on my shoulder and taken careful aim. Disappointment set in along with a sore arm. For now I had to admit to my friend that I'd screwed up. Had failed to administer the coup de grace. Which is French lingo for Now We Can Cook the Turkey.

    Maybe, if I can find One Hundred & One Ways To Screw Up A Turkey Hunt I'll blow the dust off,  add a new chapter. Life has many minor disappointments such as this but the time spent in the Spring Woods, rising early, seeing stars, listening to the woods wake up is a gift of renewal and maybe, just maybe the fault lies in having too large a brain infected by a touch of Turkey Fever. May Serenity Be Yours especially my Vegetarian friends who can laugh all the way to the Garden.  

     Peace Be With You! Why Not!  Tony 

* Note all pictures taken in the woods hunted, except photos of turkeys courtesy of the DNR,

 thanks Brad & Mechelle for sharing your property!

** Speaking of fashion this hunter wore a 17 year old LL Bean flannel shirt. My mother

gave me a flannel shirt from L.L. Bean every Christmas. Thanks Mom!