Bob's 2022 Fall Turkey

Prior to last year’s one-week fall turkey season, I had scouted several locations, hoping to line up a flock for opening day. Though I failed to put any birds “to bed” the evening prior to the opener, I knew where a couple flocks were hanging out. Bob, my son, whose job prevents him from doing much scouting, agreed that a flock frequenting a section of game lands was probably our best bet for opening day.

We were set up at dawn on a ridge where grapevines were loaded with fruit and where there had been good turkey scratching (places where turkeys rake back leaves while looking for food) during the week before the season. However, no birds were chattering at dawn, so we set out on a hike along the side of the ridge. Bob had to take it slowly: My bum knee was giving me trouble, and I had to be careful. (I still have the bum knee, despite having endured a couple of medical procedures while hoping to avoid a knee replacement.) We hunted there till 3:00 in the afternoon when we arrived back at our parked trucks. “Call your mother on your cell phone,” I told him. “Tell her we’re going to another spot. I don’t want her worrying.”

When he contacted her, he became excited. “Come on,” he said upon hanging up. “She told me ‘Scout’ called her a half-hour ago and has a flock broken. We can get there in 15 minutes.”

When we got to Scout’s Ridge, he was sitting there with his turkey. “They’re down over the hill, and at least one’s calling. They’re pretty well scattered.”

We hustled down the knob where Bob thought we ought to set up, and he began to call. One bird answered from across a ravine, while others called from below us in the ravine. They were screened by a thicket of multiflora rose. I faced these birds, while Bob looked across the ravine for the wild turkey that was calling there.

The turkey across the ravine called steadily and seemed to be approaching us. He answered every yelp and cluck that Bob sent out. Meanwhile, the turkeys behind the thicket became increasingly excited and vocal as Bob increased his frequency and volume of calling. I prepared to shoot as soon as one stepped out. That didn’t happen, but the turkey across the ravine appeared – close enough for Bob to shoot. He downed it. After that, the other birds shut up. We tried to run them down, but they had vanished.