The Turkey Roost
We made our way to the location just before daylight. We made very little noise and set up just as planned. As the sun came up, we were about fifty yards from where we had seen the gobbler the evening before.
We glanced up into the trees with our binoculars and sure enough, there the gobbler was just a roosting away. We made a couple of soft yelps from the old mouth call just to let the gobbler know that we were there. The gobbler responded with several gobbles. Everything was just fine, or so we thought.
The sun kept rising, we kept yelping, the turkey kept gobbling. Still sitting in the tree. 7:00 am, 7:30 am, 8:00 am, soft yelps, gobble-gobble, still on the roost. 8:30 am, 9:00 am, still in the tree. Although we managed to find humor in the situation, we were both a little dumbfounded.
I decided to crawl away from the turkey, thinking the gobbler might fly down after the yelping started to leave him. I moved about seventy five yards away, still in the tree. One hundred yards away, still in the tree. One hundred fifty yards away, still in the tree.
By this time its 10:00 am and I made my way back to where my brother was. He is pretty much in tears from laughing so hard. He whispers over to me, “apparently Mr. Tom ain’t coming off the roost today.” Of course now we are both laughing.
Now 12:00 noon is the close of the day where we were hunting and now its 10:45 am, so we need a new plan. My brother is going to circle around the turkey and approach from behind. I’m going to maintain my position but crawl in a little closer.
I get within thirty yards of the turkey and stop. Meanwhile, my brother is taking a long slow approach from behind. He gets within thirty yards of the gobbler and stops. Now we are both well within shotgun range of the gobbler but we don’t shoot turkeys off the roost.
At 11:30 am, I stand up and slowly walk towards the gobbler. Finally the gobbler flies down, just over the head of my brother. Just as the gobblers feet hit the ground, my brother ended the hunt.
Now this turned out to be one of those strange but extremely funny days in the turkey woods. We have never known a turkey to stay on the roost that long before or since. 19 pounds, 10 inch beard, 1 inch spurs.
