The Fly Up Turkey
Ever been turkey hunting and had those picture or video moments where everything worked according to plans? Well although we have had quite a few of those, there are just as many if not more that didn’t turn out the way it was expected. This is one of those stories.
As we stepped onto one of the ridges at daybreak, we heard the sounds of gobblers among us. Now any turkey hunter loves to hear these gobbles first thing in the morning. We decided to pick the gobbler that was the closest and began our assault. My brother hit the slate call a few times and received a welcomed gobble response. This went on for forty five minutes and then the gobbler went away from us never to be seen or heard again.
No problem, we have plenty of time. We picked up on another gobbler and headed his way. On our second set up, we carried on another conversation with Mr Gobbler number two for an hour. Again we were skunked.
We located our third gobbler and set up again. Yelp-yelp, gobble, gobble, gobble. But again after another hour had passed – nothing.
Now on one hand we had some heavy action, but on the other hand, not so good results. By mid day, we had stopped on the top of one of the ridges, got a bite to eat and regrouped.
Shortly afterwards, we made contact with gobbler number four. We made a very long path to get to him. As we set up on him, the fourth gobbler seemed happy to make our acquaintances. Unfortunately, he locked up on us about seventy five yards out. Back and forth we went. And then like our three previous encounters, the hunt ended with nothing.
As the time went by, we decided that we needed to start heading back towards the truck. Since we had been very active, we had walked about three miles from the truck. We decided that the most direct way path back was by way of the river bank.
About three quarters of the way back, my brother lost his footing and slipped into the edge of the river. The barrel of his shotgun went into the moody river bank along with him getting soaked. Now we both got a good laugh out of the situation. He climbed back onto dry ground and decided to sit for a few minutes. He had to clean out his barrel and we would be back on our way.
As we were sitting there laughing, my brother cut loose with his mouth call a few times. A few minutes later, to our surprise, a turkey flew towards us and landed in the tree just above our head. Yes, that would be gobbler number five.
Now we don’t shoot turkeys out of trees but we had to laugh at the situation. The turkey stayed for fifteen minutes and then flew away. We both looked at each other, shook our heads, laughed, and walked back to the truck.
We had a great day. Lots of action and lots of laughs
