Bob's 2020 Autumn Turkey

Along with our friend Scout, my son, Bob, is one of the two best autumn turkey hunters I know. Like Scout, Bob hunts hard, covering lots of ground in his efforts to tag autumn turkeys. Unlike Scout, Bob has one liability as an autumn hunter: He regularly shepherds me on his hunts, and I slow him down considerably.

Last fall, however, Bob was not encumbered by my presence on the opening day. The evening prior to the autumn opener, we were scouting; and I slipped on some wet leaves and took a terrible fall onto a rock pile. I could hardly limp back to the truck. I informed Bob that he was going to have to hunt on his own the next day.

Bob lives outside of Tyrone. From much scouting and hunting over the years, he has learned where to hunt turkeys not far from his home. Last year's fall opener found him situated in the woods close to a farm owned by one of his friends. When nothing happened at daybreak, he began a long-hike hunt. During the early morning he covered the rugged side of a steep mountain. "Dad, I usually find scratching there. The turkeys like to feed on the grapes on the steep banks. When something threatens them, they sneak into the mountain laurel thickets to hide. But, I didn't see one scratch in a couple hours of hunting, so I decided to change locations."

He decided to hunt along a long ridge that parallels a series of farm fields. "My friend had been seeing turkeys there till a week before the season, but then they disappeared. Still, I figured I'd have a good chance to find a flock. I hadn't gone very far, and I ran into fresh turkey scratching. There were lots of acorns on the ground, and the turkeys were after them. I thought I could probably run into the birds if I followed the scratching."

At noon, Bob sat down for a water break. After taking a swig from his water bottle, he sent out some yelps from a favorite caller – just in case a bird was near.

"I got an answer right away, so I sent out a few more yelps. No more than 10 minutes later, a single bird appeared. He was coming my way quickly. When he entered a little dip, I got my gun up. When he emerged from the dip, I centered the sights on him and fired. It was nice to tote the young gobbler out of the woods."