RG_Adult_Onset_Hunter
Well-known member
“So that’s turkey hunting?!”, breathless from laughter, frustration, and fatigue, I shrugged. “Yeah, that is about it.” Moments earlier I was behind our parked car, my wife well ahead of me with good back cover, shotgun at the ready. When I called, the response of the birds we knew to be concealed by the terrain was instant. We all know in that moment with perfect certitude “This is going to happen”.
“This” can often be quite variable.
By all accounts the day was a total failure up to this point. There was no chance of getting to this location pre-dawn with our responsibilities to the farm. The next best thing for us was to be on location for that wonderful prime feeding time occurring around nine AM through ten. Just about every bird I haven’t shot to the colors of sunrise has died in that timeframe instead.
We made every preparation to be there in order to set up for that time. Every, train, construction crew, and automobile ahead of us seemed to absolutely conspire to make us late. We rolled into the rural driveway of our hunting location at 9:09. The birds were feeding in the ditch next to the drive. My wife had an instant lust for the tom in the lead (and I had an instant lust not to have tagged out so early in the season). We were feet from them when we first saw them; getting out of the car to blast one was both unlikely to yield results and hardly fair even if we could have figured out a way to make it work.
We instead pulled around the drive and went up the private maintenance road until we could no longer see the birds in the gulley of the landowners’ front yard. From here we could get out, grab some minimal gear, load a gun and make a quarter mile circular bushwhack to a decent calling location that I have seen the birds abscond through when pressured in the past. In position, we called to the kind of silence you only get in Oregon between the rains. With no rain, and no sun to speak of, even the color of the woods seems quiet.
Of course, we probably made a hell of a racket getting into position in the first place.
Impatient, we decided to push forward a bit to see where the birds might have gone. Slowly and methodically we moved towards the home. The birds had vanished. My wife later observed that their ability to seemingly vaporize was awe inspiring.
This was the last legal day of the hunt. My wife, I must mention has put in a heck of a lot of field time this year without any sort of success. I blame myself as a mentor, I’m learning too. But dang-it, I know how to kill a turkey, and I know this property incredibly well. Perhaps I let my desire for her first bird get the best of me; no, I am certain that I let that happen. Like I said, I’m learning too.
We decided on a tactical turkey drive.
Yeah, I know.
But it’s worked before.
My wife set herself up in the first calling location, since it’s a natural egress point. She would do some light calling while I did a slow stroll up the property to zigzag back through the prime roosting areas to push any-thing I saw her way. I made the occasional call in the hopes of locating a bird with no response.
This is a great way to see a lot of squirrels.
The only turkey I heard was my wife. Man, she sounded good with the slate (I personally skipped learning this tool…an oversight I think I should rectify). Her setup looked great too. I could not help but admire it.
No birds though.
We shared sandwiches and brought each other up to speed. At this point we decided to travel off property to the BLM lands to check on a camera we had hung at a very promising saddle. I had brought my .308 along for forms sake, as it was the last day to fill the black bear tag in my pocket. I had given up hope on getting this bear this year, but I’d at least like a picture of the fella.
No pictures at all. The camera was too high.
I should mention that this camera is on a saddle on a high finger ridge running north south dividing 3 drainages, with a second saddle perpendicularly west of it above a small spring. It’s a good spot.
Which is why I should have been paying more attention.
We moved the first camera to be a bit lower and decided to mount a second camera down ridge from the saddle to catch a bit more traffic. The second camera got mounted at ground level, as by this point, I was getting lazy, and frankly, I was not terribly concerned about theft on this ridge in the off season. What should have concerned me was the wind.
I heard a crack, and then a crunching sound. I’ve observed that as I have gotten a vocabulary of woodland sounds under my belt all the sounds get noticed, but some instantly raise the hair on my neck. Before I could react and get to my gun, the sound moved downwind, and then crashed through the woods, ticking off every squirrel in a straight line down the drainage.
I had just blown my bear.
Disheartened, we headed back down-hill. I took us on an awful route down the hill that ended up committing us to a slick gully full of nootka rose and scrub oak. Anyone who has been through that will know about how we felt when we got to the flatland again. Anyone who hasn’t is luckier, smarter, or just needs to spend more time in the woods.
That said, we should have regrouped when we got to the first clearing. Instead we marched on without a plan towards the car like we were coming back from a typical hike.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that we ran into a mess of turkeys.
I take responsibility for the goat rodeo that afterwards ensued. My wife described it with much more colorful-and accurate-language. As we came around a bend I suddenly spotted about 7 birds, all in a straight line, about 15 yards away, moving through the thick scrub brush. We should have either froze, or tried to really spook them to bust up the flock and call them back together. Instead we, kinda froze, struggled to get into position. I stupidly called. We did a field repair on my wife’s shotgun as it had gotten filled with moss on the trip either up or down the mountain (I had advised that taping the barrel was probably not needed….I am an idiot). Fumbled to get into position again, and again. Our three stooges routine was met by the turkeys with a fairly obvious response.
“Putt”
I hate that sound, but I do love turkeys for being courteous enough to let you know when you have gone too far. Dejected and running out of time. My wife’s gun was still having a few issues closing properly (a double barrel a small amount of moss in the locking mechanism makes a heck of a headache). We started to pack it in. This is when we saw the birds. Three big birds in front of the owner’s home. Four hundred yards away.
I should mention that our hosts are fine with shots close to the home (to the point of offering their porch as a blind-no, I am not tempted to take that offer). Rural turkey always comes down to planning good shooting lanes to work with. These were the first birds we had seen all day that were giving us a chance to do this. My wife had minutes before chastised me for some of my lack of communication on this trip (she was right). I slowed down and explained every bit of the plan and made sure it had give for us to adjust as needed to put us in a good safe spot to put this all together.
She was awesome, we got down the road and into cover undetected and quickly, while I was able to monitor the location of the birds most of the way in. We had wound up where we had parked the car. She moved ahead and into a good position to make use of the likely travel corridor the birds would use when I called. She signaled to me that she could not see the birds. I signaled to her to keep looking; I knew the birds were in a small gulley in front of the home.
That’s when I called, peaking from behind the car, totally concealed. When I saw the birds, I slipped what sliver of myself was showing behind the car. Any moment now I expected to see one of the turkeys heading into our road, and in front of an eager shotgun.
My wife has one of the most expressive faces of any person I have ever met, her hand signals are also full of emotion and gusto. The message was confusion. She signaled that the birds were behind the barn, at first my thought was that they crossed the road directly and were making the right turn needed to come to us. Only temporarily out of sight. Then, I heard her say “I see them” with a look of utter bemusement. She was not looking the direction I expected. I peaked over the car to see 7 turkeys running for their lives. Out of range, and out of time, we knew that we were not filling her first season’s tag.
“It must have been something I said”, we burst into laughter.
“This” can often be quite variable.
By all accounts the day was a total failure up to this point. There was no chance of getting to this location pre-dawn with our responsibilities to the farm. The next best thing for us was to be on location for that wonderful prime feeding time occurring around nine AM through ten. Just about every bird I haven’t shot to the colors of sunrise has died in that timeframe instead.
We made every preparation to be there in order to set up for that time. Every, train, construction crew, and automobile ahead of us seemed to absolutely conspire to make us late. We rolled into the rural driveway of our hunting location at 9:09. The birds were feeding in the ditch next to the drive. My wife had an instant lust for the tom in the lead (and I had an instant lust not to have tagged out so early in the season). We were feet from them when we first saw them; getting out of the car to blast one was both unlikely to yield results and hardly fair even if we could have figured out a way to make it work.
We instead pulled around the drive and went up the private maintenance road until we could no longer see the birds in the gulley of the landowners’ front yard. From here we could get out, grab some minimal gear, load a gun and make a quarter mile circular bushwhack to a decent calling location that I have seen the birds abscond through when pressured in the past. In position, we called to the kind of silence you only get in Oregon between the rains. With no rain, and no sun to speak of, even the color of the woods seems quiet.
Of course, we probably made a hell of a racket getting into position in the first place.
Impatient, we decided to push forward a bit to see where the birds might have gone. Slowly and methodically we moved towards the home. The birds had vanished. My wife later observed that their ability to seemingly vaporize was awe inspiring.
This was the last legal day of the hunt. My wife, I must mention has put in a heck of a lot of field time this year without any sort of success. I blame myself as a mentor, I’m learning too. But dang-it, I know how to kill a turkey, and I know this property incredibly well. Perhaps I let my desire for her first bird get the best of me; no, I am certain that I let that happen. Like I said, I’m learning too.
We decided on a tactical turkey drive.
Yeah, I know.
But it’s worked before.
My wife set herself up in the first calling location, since it’s a natural egress point. She would do some light calling while I did a slow stroll up the property to zigzag back through the prime roosting areas to push any-thing I saw her way. I made the occasional call in the hopes of locating a bird with no response.
This is a great way to see a lot of squirrels.
The only turkey I heard was my wife. Man, she sounded good with the slate (I personally skipped learning this tool…an oversight I think I should rectify). Her setup looked great too. I could not help but admire it.
No birds though.
We shared sandwiches and brought each other up to speed. At this point we decided to travel off property to the BLM lands to check on a camera we had hung at a very promising saddle. I had brought my .308 along for forms sake, as it was the last day to fill the black bear tag in my pocket. I had given up hope on getting this bear this year, but I’d at least like a picture of the fella.
No pictures at all. The camera was too high.
I should mention that this camera is on a saddle on a high finger ridge running north south dividing 3 drainages, with a second saddle perpendicularly west of it above a small spring. It’s a good spot.
Which is why I should have been paying more attention.
We moved the first camera to be a bit lower and decided to mount a second camera down ridge from the saddle to catch a bit more traffic. The second camera got mounted at ground level, as by this point, I was getting lazy, and frankly, I was not terribly concerned about theft on this ridge in the off season. What should have concerned me was the wind.
I heard a crack, and then a crunching sound. I’ve observed that as I have gotten a vocabulary of woodland sounds under my belt all the sounds get noticed, but some instantly raise the hair on my neck. Before I could react and get to my gun, the sound moved downwind, and then crashed through the woods, ticking off every squirrel in a straight line down the drainage.
I had just blown my bear.
Disheartened, we headed back down-hill. I took us on an awful route down the hill that ended up committing us to a slick gully full of nootka rose and scrub oak. Anyone who has been through that will know about how we felt when we got to the flatland again. Anyone who hasn’t is luckier, smarter, or just needs to spend more time in the woods.
That said, we should have regrouped when we got to the first clearing. Instead we marched on without a plan towards the car like we were coming back from a typical hike.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that we ran into a mess of turkeys.
I take responsibility for the goat rodeo that afterwards ensued. My wife described it with much more colorful-and accurate-language. As we came around a bend I suddenly spotted about 7 birds, all in a straight line, about 15 yards away, moving through the thick scrub brush. We should have either froze, or tried to really spook them to bust up the flock and call them back together. Instead we, kinda froze, struggled to get into position. I stupidly called. We did a field repair on my wife’s shotgun as it had gotten filled with moss on the trip either up or down the mountain (I had advised that taping the barrel was probably not needed….I am an idiot). Fumbled to get into position again, and again. Our three stooges routine was met by the turkeys with a fairly obvious response.
“Putt”
I hate that sound, but I do love turkeys for being courteous enough to let you know when you have gone too far. Dejected and running out of time. My wife’s gun was still having a few issues closing properly (a double barrel a small amount of moss in the locking mechanism makes a heck of a headache). We started to pack it in. This is when we saw the birds. Three big birds in front of the owner’s home. Four hundred yards away.
I should mention that our hosts are fine with shots close to the home (to the point of offering their porch as a blind-no, I am not tempted to take that offer). Rural turkey always comes down to planning good shooting lanes to work with. These were the first birds we had seen all day that were giving us a chance to do this. My wife had minutes before chastised me for some of my lack of communication on this trip (she was right). I slowed down and explained every bit of the plan and made sure it had give for us to adjust as needed to put us in a good safe spot to put this all together.
She was awesome, we got down the road and into cover undetected and quickly, while I was able to monitor the location of the birds most of the way in. We had wound up where we had parked the car. She moved ahead and into a good position to make use of the likely travel corridor the birds would use when I called. She signaled to me that she could not see the birds. I signaled to her to keep looking; I knew the birds were in a small gulley in front of the home.
That’s when I called, peaking from behind the car, totally concealed. When I saw the birds, I slipped what sliver of myself was showing behind the car. Any moment now I expected to see one of the turkeys heading into our road, and in front of an eager shotgun.
My wife has one of the most expressive faces of any person I have ever met, her hand signals are also full of emotion and gusto. The message was confusion. She signaled that the birds were behind the barn, at first my thought was that they crossed the road directly and were making the right turn needed to come to us. Only temporarily out of sight. Then, I heard her say “I see them” with a look of utter bemusement. She was not looking the direction I expected. I peaked over the car to see 7 turkeys running for their lives. Out of range, and out of time, we knew that we were not filling her first season’s tag.
“It must have been something I said”, we burst into laughter.
