4 May 2007
Smoked By A Turkey
Posted by Darrell under: Turkey; Missouri .
I don’t know what it is about Missouri Turkeys, but I just can’t seem to kill one. I didn’t grow up hunting them and just started last year. My big mistake, early on, was in not hunting with anyone that really knew what they were doing.
I figured that I had been seeing turkeys for years while deer hunting, so how hard could getting one really be? Well, if you don’t know what you are doing it can be really hard! Last spring I hunted several mornings without success. Finally, someone in my office, feeling sorry for me, offered to take me with them the following morning. This guy was a turkey fanatic and knew everything about turkeys - this was going to be a breeze.
I noticed that his method of hunting was a lot different than mine. He had permission to hunt a several thousand acre farm just outside of town. We drove up to a ridge, got out of the truck, and started walking - all while it was still dark. He blew an owl call a couple times as we walked and located an old tom.
We set up right there and he started calling as soon as we heard that bird fly down. “Stay still and quiet” he ordered. I’ll admit that he was a magician with his mouth call and had that gobbler talking up a storm. However, that bird got distracted and never came in. Off we went. Walking along while he made a few clucks with his diaghram call we located another tom. This one was on the ground and strutting about 60 yds away. We both found trees and he started calling.
That bird came running in. I was excited. But, then the wind picked up and all of a sudden we had a wind at our back blowing directly toward that tom. I panicked and shot while he was still about 40 yards out. I hit him dead on in the chest and he rolled a couple times and then got up and flew away like nothing ever happened.
I was devistated. My workmate was livid.
“What the #@%! were you doing - that bird was coming straight in!”, he not so kindly asked me.
“I was afraid he would smell us”, I replied.
“Turkeys can’t smell!”, he yelled back and “by the way, you told me you had patterned that gun”
“I did”, I replied.
“Than why didn’t you hit him in the head?”, he asked in pure frustration.
“Because I was aiming at his chest!”, I responded.
I learned a valuable lesson that day. You’d better ask questions before hunting something you know know nothing about. I thought I’d look like an idiot asking how to hunt a stupid old bird. I kept my mouth shut before hand, playing it cool, and ended up BEING an idiot!
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