“Lessons Learned from the Magnificent Bird”

This is the unedited version, also the last chapter  of my book ; “Lessons Learned from the Magnificent Bird” to be published

“OPENING DAY”
By Gary Sefton

His heart was pounding in his ears and his legs  were aching when  he finally reached the top of the ridge.  He stopped to gasp and blow long enough to smooth out his ragged breathing before moving  to a familiar spot.   He didn’t consider his 82 years as any kind of a  disadvantage, he just promised himself, as he did every year,  he would  get in better shape before next turkey  season.    The long  climb up the steep side of the ridge  through the rocks  and roots had tested him  but  he was where he wanted to be.   And he was there on time.   The East was  pinking  up  and the whippoorwills were  winding down  a   night  of pouring out their souls in  optimistic repetition.  He was glad to be deep in the Tennessee  turkey woods on another  opening day.

Scooting  down  between the roots of  a gnarled old red oak,  he leaned back and told himself  this would be as  good a  place as any to listen .  He didn’t want to stagger around in the dark and get too close to a gobbler and flush him or lock him up in the tree.  He  would  likely have to move when he heard one  gobble but he was in a good place and besides, he needed to rest his tired old legs.

From his location high up on the Tennessee ridge, the old man knew he would hear at least two birds gobble, probably more.  He had heard what he believed to be eight different turkeys gobble one morning from this same ridge. He was so sure the turkeys were here he didn’t bother trying to put one to bed the night before.   They were  plentiful now but that didn’t make them  easy.  In fact the hens were so abundant  a gobbler could just sit in a tree and gobble ‘til a hen walked under him , then  flap down out of the tree, land  beside her and start grinning her down.

The redbirds were making a few cautious peeps but they weren’t serious yet.  He decided he’d  hold off crow calling or owl hooting and let the turkeys gobble on their own.  He didn’t want to get them started too early for fear they might call another hunter up on the ridge with him.  He didn’t like company when he was trying to turkey hunt.   No one else had permission to be on this ridge but that didn’t seem to mean anything any more.   Most of the turkey hunters he knew  were the finest people on earth but there would always be a few rude and inconsiderate thugs who paid no heed to fences or signs when they heard a turkey gobble.  More turkeys, unfortunately, meant more turkey hunters and he didn’t want to tempt fate.  He had time to kill.  He knew better than to try to rush  things.  That was one mistake he had finally quit making.

The old man liked to ponder and reminisce in the  pre-dawn to temper the anticipation and anxiety that always came with waiting for the first notes of the song that would set the stage and start the dance.  And he knew the dance so well.  He had called the tune so many times.   Even though he was more aggressive than most of his hunting buddies he had learned to let the turkeys set the tempo.  He knew he couldn’t force a turkey to do anything but he did like to get as close as possible without being seen.  He  believed  a turkey gobbler  had a “ must  investigate” zone around him.  If a hunter could get inside of that zone and send out a  string of  soft,  contented hen yelps,  that  gobbler would have to come see.  He swore up and down  that proximity was more important than  calling,  especially if a gobbler was already with hens.  Getting that close wasn’t always possible and never easy but he always tried.   He ran off a bird now and then but he tied every one of  his tags on mature gobblers’ legs  every year.  He knew a hunter sitting in a blind watching decoys and yelping now and then would eventually bring home a bird but that  wasn’t his style.    If he didn’t hook up with a gobbler after first fly down, he was off and running.  Of course he didn’t run too fast these days but he believed if he  covered enough ground and made enough calls, he  would eventually find a gobbler that wanted to  ride home with him.

He wondered how many of today’s turkey hunters would have been as enthusiastic twenty years ago.   Heck, back then success was measured by how many gobbles a hunter  heard.  Even the best turkey hunters  would think they  had a real good day if a turkey actually answered their calling and you could get your picture in the paper if you  killed one.   He knew he was a good hunter but back then turkeys were shy and  hard to find in Tennessee

He remembered  when some of his hunting buddies would come back  from a hunt in  Missouri with stories about hearing eight or more  different turkeys gobbling on the roost in the morning  and seeing a gobbler in every field in the afternoon.  Back then he wanted more than anything to go to Missouri and hunt but he could never find the time or the money.  He remembered thinking if he behaved himself while he was here on earth, maybe when he died he would get to go to Missouri.  He also remembered thinking he wasn’t in that much of a hurry  to get to Missouri.

He still thought about  Missouri now and then but it wasn’t a big deal anymore.       Turkeys were plentiful right  here in Tennessee.   He never thought he’d see the day when he would hear seven or eight different gobblers at one time this close to home  but he had, on several occasions.   Why,  he had wild turkeys coming to a feeder in his yard every morning.  Of course he didn’t hunt his “yard turkeys” but he was  glad they were there.  It did his heart good just to see them.

A Barred  owl hooted a couple ridges over and he wondered if that was really an owl or a turkey hunter.  Some of his buddies were so good at owling  he couldn’t tell them from the real thing.  He always claimed he had the perfect owl hoot imitation .  He was good enough to make turkeys gobble and bad enough to let other hunters know a man was doing the hooting.  Nothing answered the owl but it wouldn’t be long now.  He pulled on his gloves, stuck a diaphragm in his mouth and pulled his face mask up over his nose.  The turkeys were here and they would be talking soon.

He took a certain amount of pride in the fact that the turkeys in this area  didn’t just happen by themselves.  He thought about how long and hard he and others like him, as a part of,  and along with the  National Wild Turkey Federation,  had worked to re-introduce the grand birds to Tennessee.    How pleasantly surprised he had been by the dedication and hard work  the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency put into the restoration project with their education, protection and trap and transfer programs.  How working  side by side with them  had removed   the trace of  adversarial atmosphere  that always seemed to linger between  uniformed law enforcement officers and civilians and   the many  friends he now had within the agency .

And  the most pleasant surprise of all was how the turkeys responded to the programs.  When all the “suitable” habitat had been filled, the turkeys began to flourish in what had been previously deemed “unsuitable” or marginal habitat.  It was gratifying to know that  the turkey population had grown and flourished to the point that now  every county in Tennessee  had a spring gobbler season and many had fall  “quota” hunts.  The statewide  spring bag limit was up to four  gobblers and some of the fall hunters could take two birds on their permit.  The turkey hunting “good old days” were right now!

He could see his feet now and the red  birds were putting some feeling into their songs.  He heard the first turkey  gobble two ridges over in response to an  authentic sounding owl hoot.   As an almost involuntary response to the gobble  he looked at his watch and made a mental note of the time.  It is always good to know what  time the first bird gobbled.

He smiled to himself  as he remembered how he used to describe wild turkeys  as “rare and expensive and not fit to eat ” in a half-hearted attempt to try to discourage would-be turkey hunters.  He  would jokingly tell them turkey hunting  is “a high risk, low quality  sport  that is mostly for people who are too lazy to fish”.  He remembered how  none of his fellow turkey hunters  would ever tell where they  had seen a strutting bird  and how jealously he and others would guard the location of a gobbling turkey.   Back then most turkey hunters subscribed to  the  “yelp 3 times and put your call away” method  of calling turkeys but that was way too boring for him.   The old-timers  would fuss at him for calling too loud and moving too much and he would tell them he didn’t call any louder or move any more than a real hen.  Now he was an “old-timer” but he hadn’t changed much.  He still called loud and aggressive  if it fit the situation and he still “ran ‘em hard”.

Talk about something changing he thought, the number of different types of turkey calls on the market today  were enough to make a man dizzy.  It wasn’t that long ago that a wooden match box and a whet rock or the glued together bones from a turkey  wing or a piece of blackboard slate with a corn cob peg were what folks used to call turkeys.  He’d learned early on to make decent yelps  with a tender  leaf or a  blade of grass but in those days people  mostly used slate or wing bones.    Walk into the call section of a sporting goods store today  and you could see a hundred different kinds of   diaphragm calls.  That’s  not to mention peg and pot friction calls made with everything from slate to titanium and box calls of all shapes and sizes and tubes and shakers and push and pull and  scratch and squawk and spit and drum and on  and on.  And most of them , properly used, would call turkeys.

He remembered when the first commercial diaphragm calls had been introduced and what a difference they had made in his calling.  He marveled at how much the design and construction of all turkey calls had improved through the years to keep pace with the growing market .  He was constantly  amazed at how industrious and creative people could be when there was money to be made and he supported their efforts in every way he could.  He tried every new turkey calling device that came out just to see if and how it  worked and to encourage the call makers to continue making new calls.    No matter how well they worked,  few, if any of the new gadgets made their way into his hunting vest.

A nearby owl hoot jarred him wide awake.  When another owl laughed and cackled, turkeys gobbled in every direction.  He knew he heard at least six different turkeys and two of them were close.    The closest one, less than seventy five yards away, was on  his  same ridge, due East of where he sat.  He was  positioned  just right.  He wouldn’t  have to move a step!  A hen yawned out a couple muffled tree yelps back down the ridge to the West and the close gobbler hammered.  Perfect,  he thought,  he  was between the gobbler and where the gobbler wanted to be.  He did a couple of soft yelps on his diaphragm and the gobbler chimed in on cue.  This might be too  easy, he thought, but  he knew better than to count  his turkeys before they flew down.  And even if it  seemed  easy, he knew he had earned any gift turkey that he happened up on.   Hadn’t he been scouting this ridge for twenty years to find out where to get and  wasn’t he the one that climbed the steep hillside way before daylight to put himself in the right place?

The close turkey gobbled at a scolding crow, then gobbled again at hen yelps from the West.  More turkeys were gobbling in the distance  but he kept his attention on the close one.  He knew it wouldn’t be long  until fly down time so he eased his gun up on his knee and shifted his weight around to relieve his tired old bones.  He clucked and yelped loud on his diaphragm  to let the gobbler know there was a hen close by and the gobbler fired back immediately letting him know they were communicating with each other.  The old man thought he could hear the turkey strutting and drumming in the tree.  He was glad he couldn’t see him.  He liked to get close but he’d had very little success with turkeys he could see on the roost.  They always gobbled and carried on in the tree  but when  they flew down, they always  went the other way.  His pulse rate picked up  at the sound of   wing beats.  The  gobbler  was on the ground! Time to get down to business.  The old man cut loose a string of urgent excited yelps and the gobbler fired back twice.  He had closed the distance when he flew down and he was now fifty yards out just over the break of the ridge.  The old man shifted his body to the right so he could cover more ground with his gun and waited.  He could hear the drumming plainly now.  He was hoping the gobbler would close a little more ground before he crested the ridge.  He always tried to set up so that when the bird was in sight he would be in range  but this time he didn’t have a choice.  The turkey hollered out another demanding gobble, closer this time but still under the ridge. The old mans’ heart was hammering now and he welcomed the adrenalin rush that heightened his senses and  tuned  up his nerves.  He was the predator and his prey was at hand, the dance was almost done. Twenty yards from the old mans’ gun barrel the gobblers’ white head peeked over  the ridge.   The turkey  gobbled,  took a quick look around,  then strutted and drummed his way into full view on the ridge top.  The old man was on him all the way.  He would have liked to admire  the magnificent bird a little longer but he felt exposed and knew it was time to end the dance.  He eased the safety off, took careful aim at the gobblers’ neck,  where the feathers meet the skin and squeezed the trigger.  The  sharp  CLICK of the firing pin landing on an empty chamber and the loud exclamation “Dadgum!!” brought the turkey out of strut and sent him trotting down the ridge putting and fussing while the old man shook his head in disbelief. He fussed and fumed for a while and then he burst out laughing.  He knew exactly what had happened.  As an extra safety  measure, the old man  never loaded his gun until he sat down to call .  This time  his  cautious habit cost him a fine gobbler .  “What a dumb mistake” he muttered to himself as he picked his way down the rocky slope, “climbing that dern ridge must have  took so much out of me I  forgot to load  my gun!   Can’t tell the missus about this, she’s always scolding me about being absent minded, I’d never hear the end of it. Dadgum   that was a big turkey!   I bet his spurs were two inches long! Oh Well, he’s still out there and I’ll guarantee you one thing…..  I’ll be in better shape  on opening day next year!”.