Turkey Season comes to an end!

Somewhere someone has got to get the end of turkey season coordinated with other world shattering events: like Mother’s day and Pentecost. This year, the last day of turkey season coincided with one of Hallmark’s favorite money makers and the birth of the Christian church. Who in their right mind other than the motherless would have the guts to go turkey hunting on Mother’s day and also not go to church? With this in mind and also a teenager with bronchitis/pneumonia, I was limited to a couple of afternoon turkey hunts when I could slip away ffrom work. What occurred were two of the more eventful hunts of my life:

Thursday afternoon: Back to Chuck Bean’s TrophyBassLake farm. Having only the afternoon, I decided to set up on a planted powerline that I knew was a feeding site and also strutting zone for Chuck’s turkeys. This late in the season when birds can be a little call shy and gobbling is at a minimum, I elected to just sit quitely, throw out an occasional yelp, and beat the ground with my turkey wing. My Ameristeps Chairblind is perfect for this type of hunting. Sitting in a nice camp chair in the shade beats being on the ground anytime! About an hour into my hunt/sit, I was checking e-mail when I looked down the power line and saw a hen approaching. I slowly brought my binoculars up to take a closer look and noticed she had a pretty long beard for a hen. I also noticed something shiny on her leg which turned out to be a band . Normally I would not shoot a bearded hen(they are legal in Tennessee) but the chance to take a banded bird sealed the deal. At 27 yards, My Primos Jellyhead choke and Hevi-Shot #4’s folded the big hen. When I got to her, I measured her beard at 7 inches. More importantly was the Dixie Chapter of the NWTF band with the #389 and the date 3/10/01. If this turkey was captured as a juvenile, this made her age about 8 years old – an Old hen!. What an unusual trophy!

Friday afternoon: Thursday worked so well that fellow Turkey Guy, Bradley “Bad Boy Buggie” Dickens and I tried to do it again. We had just arrived at the farm and were working our way down a farm road that parallels the power line. Brad is a great with a diaphragm and he was yelping and cutting as we cruised down the road. As we neared its end and started to make a right turn toward the power line, his yelping was answered by multiple gobbles from multiple gobblers and they were on the power line and they were close! Brad and I quickly tucked ourselves in the shade of a large tree and began to call. It was quickly apparent that these gobblers would answer just about anything we threw at them: cutts, purrs, yelps, scratching, wing beats,…. I bet they would have even gobbled at a Boy George album… but they were not leaving that power line. Brad whispered, “Do you think we can move closer?” From knowing the lay of the land, I knew we were toast unless those turkeys moved down the power line about 50 yards. I whispered back to Brad, “Lets be quiet for a minute and see what they do.” After a few minutes, Brad threw out a couple of yelps. The gobbles returned but from about 75 yards from where they were before. We were in business! We quietly creeped down the road until we were about 20 yards from the power line, Through the undergrowth and foliage, we could see the turkeys moving away from us. Brad quickly jumped all over them with a rapid series of cuts and they quickly did a 180 degree turned and headed back at us. We barely had time to slowly sink to the ground on the side of the road. Sitting side by side, we noticed an opening in the foliage that the toms would have to walk through. Brad whispered, “We’ll shoot when we’ve got 2 heads up. Slowly the Toms worked their way back toward us gobbling as they came. One passed by the opening and than 2 heads appeared. We whispered, “One, two, three, BOOM!” Jelly Headed Hevi-Shot did the job and the 2 birds were flopping. Getting a double with one of your favorite hunting buddies is hard to beat but what we discovered next was even better. My bird had a green tag attached to each wing with the #3 on it! Chuck Bean had seen these birds several times and had photographed them. There was also another tom in the group with a green #6.

Two hunts and 2 birds with bands/tags! I stopped by the Dickson Sportsman Store to check the birds in as they are a local TWRA big game check in station. The Sportsman Store is a great place for turkey gear and one of their knowledgable employees, T.J. Rayburn, knew the scoop on the bands and tags. The local chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation was responsible for the hen’s band. The local TWRA officer, Mitch Bailey, had been running a gobbler tagging program for a number of years. Mitch is also known as the founder of Buckthorn Camo; an up and coming camo pattern. The green tag let us know that the bird was 3 years old(tagged as a jake) and the #3 was his indentifier. I’ll try to do a future blog on Mitch and his program. After relaying the bird’s measurements to T.J, it was off to Nashville and the end of another turkey season.

Well, 4 states and 4 birds later, it has been quite a ride. We’ll continue to post blog articles from hunts in our northern states but I’m done. I also do an article about end of year storage so all of your gear will be in great shape for next year.

Keys to the hunt: