A real turkey hunt

By Louis Urquides       

AZOD Hunting Section Leader / Field Editor

I wasn’t one the lucky folks who drew a spring turkey tag the year 2001, but at least I got to go and call for a great bunch of guy’s. There were 6 “gentlemen”, a term used loosely, who had tags for the hunt this year. The line-up consisted of Paul Turley, Bryant “Opie” Ogle, Brian Myers, Jim “Duck” Robideau, and Lt. D.L. Zane and Bob “The Butcher” Thrush. For the most part these guys were new to hunting spring turkeys. I had the pleasure to start hunting with everyone except Bob about 3 years ago on a spring turkey hunt. Bob and I have been best of friends for about 20 years.

  Like I have said in articles past I have a strong passion for hunting turkeys in the spring so I didn’t mind spending a little time scouting and finding birds roosted before this years hunt. Opie, Paul and Brian had drawn a tag for a unit that I had never hunted for turkey in and the rest of the guy’s had gotten a tag for a unit that I was very familiar with.

  It was early April and I went up north for a couple days and tried to find a good location for birds in Opie, Paul, and Brian’s (“F-Troop’s”) unit first. I then went to the other area and made sure that these birds I have been hunting in the other unit were still there.  On one ridge alone I roosted 27 toms. You want to talk about exciting. I had checked out some areas that looked like would hold some birds but wasn’t having any luck in “F-Troop’s unit at all. Brian and Opie were going to head up on the Wednesday before the hunt and were going to check out country that Brian had been told about. Duck and Lt. Zane didn’t have too much to worry about as far as getting into the birds in the unit where they were drawn for.

            Well I arrived on Thursday and had time to go out with Paul, Opie and Brian to get the turkey’s put to bed. We had arrived at location where they had seen ton of sign and a few birds leaving from a dirt tank. We had just gotten out of the truck and started to walk towards the tank when I saw a good tom heading up the ridge. We stayed put and waited for the sun to go down and listen for the “fly up”.  At about dusk I started out with a coyote howl using my Coyote Thriller Howler and got a really hard gobble. As we walked a little closer Brian started to film the events and I was talking about how important roosting birds was if you planned on being a successful hunter. We had turkeys gobbling everywhere. I think we counted 8 toms on the small ridge just gobbling at whatever sound I through at them. The birds were pinned down for the night so we headed back to camp and got some sleepless rest.

            The alarm went off at 3:00 am and got the coffee and breakfast thing done and we were on the road. The excitement was building with every mile we got closer to the birds. I can understand why and how a tom wants to gobble at just about any sound they hear. Once we all got hunting and camera gear together we headed up the mountain to find the location where we thought the birds would fly down to. I hit a howl hoot to get things going and I felt like I opened the lid to Pandora’s box of turkeys. We had gotten lucky when we chose our location to set up for the first stand. We had a hen land right in the middle of our decoys yelp a couple of times and leave. By that time all of the toms had flown down and we had one coming our way and he was gobbling hard. Brian was behind the camera and he was positioned between Paul and Opie. It looked as if we going to not only get our first turkey of the season at daybreak but also get it on tape also. I had whispered to Brian and told him to tell Paul to wait until the tom was in front of the camera. I could now see the strutting tom coming in like he was tied a string. I kept telling myself this is going to look great on film. When along that time I heard Paul’s Remington 870 Express Magnum go off and the big tom hit the ground and didn’t even flinch a feather. We all got up and checked out the bird and gave out high fives and hand shakes. We turned to Brian and asked him if he got in on tape? He said, Ya I think so. I really didn’t want to hear that. We rewound the tape and found the camera to be in the infrared mode and when the tom started to come in Brian got a really great close up of the big Spruce he was next to.

            The next stand was Opie and Brain’s turn to try and get his bird and Paul was going to film. It wasn’t an hour later from when we had gotten Paul’s bird when we had 2 more toms hot ready. I had sent a couple of yelps their way and we had them located. We had to hustle to get set up because these birds were coming fast. I continued calling while everyone got set up. The toms just kept coming and I was sure that we were going to have at least our second tom of the day in the bag and was equally confident that we would get it on tape. Those toms must have gobbled for about 20 minutes and at about 30 yards from Opie. I just couldn’t understand why he never shot. The toms had hung around long enough and decided that if that stuck up little hen wasn’t going to walk at least 20 yards to them they where going to leave, so they left. Yea, they were only 30 yards away from Opie and he didn’t shoot. I asked why. He told me that he wasn’t sure if Paul had them on film so he let them go. Well Paul had gotten about 18 minutes of the greatest full strut, gobbling footage you have ever seen and heard.  I told Opie he was going to walk home after that scene.  Oh well that’s why they call it hunting not killing.

            Now its Brian’s turn. After a quick snack and a short drive we headed to another tom. We stepped out of the trucks and I let out with a series of cuts and yelps to locate a tom. With out skipping a beat a tom off in the distance started in. We cut the distance in half and got set up. Brian was set up about 30 yards from decoys and Paul had a great view of what was going to unfold. This tom was a little harder to convince to come to the call. By the way this bird was responding to the soft yelps you could tell that he had a little age to him. During all gobbling and yelping going on we had managed to get a couple more toms worked up. I think those other birds must have been subordinate toms because they sure kept their distance. Every time those other 2 toms would gobble the bird we had in hand would strut and drum. His old head was beat red and I thought it was going to pop a couple of times. After some real aggressive cuts and yelps the old tom decided it was time he went and gathered up his next date to the prom. From my position I could pulled the trigger 100 times but Brian never had clean shot. It was about 10 minutes later when the tom decided he was going to turn and try and lead his date off to the dance floor when he presented a shot to Brian. BOOM! The old tom flew away to safety and didn’t get so much as feather out of place. Turkey fever?

            Oh well Brian there will be more. Brian had went off towards the direction in which the old gobbler took off into to make double sure that he missed. We had made a long walk back to the truck and on the way back I would send out some yelps to entice a tom to respond. About the time we walked around and got up to the truck 3 toms ran out into the little opening and gobbled in unison and saw us then left us standing there with our jaws open.

            The noon lunch bell rang and then it was naptime. We all scattered out and found our pine tree sleep under when we were all of sudden hammered with dime sized hale. The storm settled in and wasn’t planning on giving up anytime soon. So off to camp we went.

             When we pulled up to camp I couldn’t believe that Duck and Zane both had a pair of toms hanging in a tree. The two said that they were back at camp by 7:30 that morning. Duck said he had found the ridge that I had told him about. They had gotten out of truck set up and let out a couple of soft yelps and woods came unglued with toms gobbling there heads off. Duck said it took about 15 minutes to get the birds with in range and he let the air out of one tom. He said when he shot he woke Zane from a early morning nap. Yes, Zane fell asleep. Really this didn’t surprise any of us. Zane can fall asleep standing up. Well Zane decided to wake up he found a tom trying to escape past him when he lowered the boom on him. I know some of you are probably thinking I made this up, but then some of you who know Zane know I am not.

            Like I said the weather had set in and I only had 2 more days to hunt with my friends. We gave it our best shot but turned up empty handed for the opening weekend. I guess Brain and Opie did finally get their birds on the their next trip up. At least they said they did. I haven’t seen any photos.