Hoping For A Better Gobbler Season

With gobbler season set to go, I am hoping for a better one than I endured last spring when I reinforced my reputation as the Cove's worst turkey hunter.

For starters, I could not hunt on the opening day. I had had some minor facial surgery, and the surgeon told me I had to wait five days to go outdoors. The fourth of these days was the gobbler opener. "Maybe I could hunt carefully," I whined.

"Nope. If you strain even a little bit, you could pop the stitches out. Don't go hunting till later," he said.

As it turned out, the gobbler opener was negatively eventful. Bob, my son, called two gobblers in during the morning. However, another "hunter" sneaked in between him and the birds both times. The intruder scared the first gobbler away. He shot at the second one and missed it. After the second incident, Bob had a short conversation with him.

I began my season the following Monday. I had roosted a bird the evening before. I was confident that I could call him in. Didn't happen. After the tom gobbled on the roost, I sent out one series of soft yelps and then waited till I was sure he was on the ground to call again. When I called to him, he replied lustily – and then strode off in the opposite direction.

The next Saturday, I fouled up Bob's chance to tag a tom. We had set up along a steep bank, and a gobbler sounded off right in front of me. When he left the tree, he sailed away; so I stood up to go to see what Bob wanted to do. It turned out he was watching several birds in the trees, including a big gobbler at 25 yards. "I was waiting for him to fly down; but when you came over, he and the hens sailed away," he told me, a lot more nicely than I would have said it.

The next week, I'd called a gobbler within 25 yards. However, I could not shoot because a hen stayed between me and the gobbler till he walked off.

In mid-May, the evening fly hatches began, keeping me on the stream till after dark as I tried to fool trout rising to eat them. I couldn't continue to wake up at 4:15 a.m. and then not hit the hay till after 11:30 p.m. I was worse than a zombie. I had to make a choice: I chose to fly-fish regularly and hunt only sporadically after mid-May.