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game calls, goose calling, goose hunting, hunting, hunting gear

On the Lanyard: Goose Call Edition

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In the years since I became an “independent” (read: unaccompanied adult) hunter, I have accumulated goose calls at a near staggering rate.  I’m not on the level of calling myself a collector yet, only because I define a collector as someone who owns more of something than they could conceivable utilize.

I’ve conversed with goose call manufacturers and collectors, as well as men and women with dozens and dozens (and in a few cases, over a hundred) of goose calls, and even they admit that there is no way they could possibly hunt with them all.  Some are showpiece or limited edition calls, others just calls that look nice on a mantle, while others still are ‘working calls’ that sound exceptional and see their share of time in the blinds, fields, pits, and swamps that we waterfowlers frequently skulk about in.

To date, all my calls have been ‘working’ calls, and both through the expansion of my goose calling abilities, as well as through necessities of space and finances, I’ve been turning my inventory of calls over these past twenty years by selling or trading older calls for either newer calls themselves or more frequently, for the capital required to purchase more goose calls.  I’ve owned several styles, tried dozens more, and from my Dad’s wooden Olt call, through to my current tools I could tell stories and share tidbits about them all; many of the older calls that I have not traded or sold sit in my gun cabinets and ammo lockers, or hang dusty on lanyards in my closet.  With all that said, this piece is going to focus on the three calls that will be residing on my lanyard this coming September.  All opinions here are my own, and the companies listed below have not had any contact with me regarding their products with respect to these reviews.

 

Super Mag

The first truly ‘custom’ short reed goose call I ever owned was my Super Mag.  It has been the last thing a lot of geese have heard since I started using it in 2005.  For years before I made the plunge into the custom acrylic short-reed market, I had been honing my skills on a variety of goose calls, from polycarbonate short reeds bought for $25 at the local hardware store to more elaborate flute-style calls bought online.  Those calls were important in learning how to run a goose call and to make the requisite sounds needed for hunting, but they all lacked ‘something’.  Some did not have enough high-note snap to be effective on windy days, while others lacked precision and realistic tone on the low moans and lay-down calls needed to finish geese close in.

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The second I took the Super Mag out of its package, I could tell it had three things going for it.  First, it was sexy looking, with a polished silver band wrapped around amber acrylic that shared its colour with a well-aged bourbon.  Second, I could tell that it was solidly made by someone who hunted geese; simple minimalist lines fit comfortably in the hand and it was well-balanced.  Third, and most important, it sounded like a real goose.  For the first time I had a call that could flat out scream on a windy day, but was subtle enough to work low end moans and growls for when the birds were just about to commit.

It took a lot of practice to re-learn how to blow a short-reed goose call, but luckily it also came with a cassette tape (it was 2005 after all) with instructions from Tim Grounds and his son, Hunter.  If it had a downfall, my only complaint about the Super Mag was that it took (and still does take) a lot of air to get it running correctly.  The reed is set up quite stiff, and while this does make for absolutely realistic low end calling and crisp, snappy honks and clucks, you need to work hard if you need to run it consistently for a long time. That said, Tim & Hunter Grounds will custom tune any call you send them, and I won’t ever forget the day I came home from work and found a message from Tim himself on my home answering machine.  I had sent my call to them because I had managed to crack the reed near the end of the 2010 hunting season. That evening I was like a star-eyed fanboy when I called him back and we talked for ten minutes about the call and how I wanted it tuned with the new reed.  The call has been money ever since, and I’m now obsessive about my reeds and ensuring they are taken of.

On a personal note, this call is still my go-to, both because you never forget your first and because it is just a blue-collar workaholic call.  I have had bloody hands on it, it has been scratched and worn, I’ve used it on freezing winter mornings, and I even slammed it in a car door once.  It has character and it still sounds great.

Tim Grounds Championship Calls

PO Box 359, 14331 Prosperity Road

Johnson City, Illinois

62951

Phone:  (618) 983-5649

 

The Goose Noose

During the 2014 off-season, I resolved to get my hands on a nice wooden short reed goose call, primarily because we had taken to hunting water now and then and I felt that the acrylic Super Mag created an unwanted echo.  I tried calls from Zink, Buck Gardner, and RNT before I found this hidden gem at my local (and newly-opened) Cabela’s store.

From the second I started blaring on it in the aisles at the store, I noticed that it had a dimension that my Super Mag did not have.  It was mellow, smooth, a little bit understated but truly goosey, especially on the moans and low end calls.  It still could run at some pretty high volumes, but while the Super Mag could plead and scream with ease and only worked the nice low end calls with some serious back-pressure, this call moaned and barked with less air and less back pressure, and even though the spit-notes and hail calls came out with a more mellow tone, it took a fraction of the air that my Tim Grounds call used.

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I had not heard of Lynch Mob Calls before that day, so I went home and did a bit of research.  Satisfied with what I found, the next day I was back buying the call, and I began obsessively practicing on it.  I found YouTube clips, I looked for articles, and I ran it nightly.  Lynch Mob Calls has since replaced this model with one they call the Game Over, so in a way I guess I do have a bit of a collector’s item on my hands.

What can I say about this call?  It has great mid-to-low end tone and on calm days or over water it is deadly.  After huffing for nearly a decade on my Super Mag it took some practice to scale back the airflow so that I did not overblow it on honk, clucks, or comeback calls, but once that was mastered this call runs slick, deep sounds that are ‘big goose’ all the way.  I had more success with it in the later October and early November hunts, but even in the early September season it fooled resident Canada geese often.

Lynch Mob Calls

9032 Bay Creek Road

Erie, Michigan

48133

Phone: (734) 848-2501

www.lynchmobcalls.com

 

Shorty Express SS (Signature Series)

I spend a lot of time in the local BassPro Shops store, and for a long time I had coveted this call.  It has clean, sharp lines, the polished band glows, and I flat out love the colour.  I did not love that it was priced in excess of $180, and I tried it over and over again on multiple trips to the store in attempts to convince my fiscally-responsible side to make the impulse purchase.  Every time I had to put it back. Then in 2014, I stopped in to BassPro on my way up to the early November deer hunt to pick up some scent eliminator for one of the guys in camp.  On a whim I cruised by the duck and goose showcase, and I was taken aback.

The call was marked down to $45.99.  I was sure it was a mistake.  I located the floor staff and asked them to take a look in their inventory system.  The price was correct, and they had one left.  So I bought it.  I was more or less done with waterfowl for the year and I was focusing on deer hunting from then out, but I noodled with it for the evenings in deer camp and then even more during the long cold lonely winter up here in Ontario.  It fell out of use for the bulk of turkey season, but I picked it up again recently and have actually been so focused on it that I have not even picked up and practiced my other two goose calls.

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The Shorty SS is a dark “mallard” acrylic and it just looks downright sexy.  It has nice lines with a curvy, rounded barrel.  The insert is a little narrow in the hand for my liking but it is not uncomfortable.  In terms of its sound it falls in between the Super Mag and the Goose Noose for volume and tone.  It makes solid goose-talk from top end to bottom end requiring just slightly more air than the Goose Noose, but almost any sound can be made using less back-pressure and expenditure than with my Super Mag.  Being an acrylic call, I find that it has a tendency to slide into the ‘high’ end easily, so in the same fashion as the Goose Noose I have to use caution not to over blow it and cause it to ‘squeal’, but it barks and double-clucks like nobody’s business.  I am very much looking forward to running this call on some of the resident Bruce County geese in six weeks.

Sean Mann Outdoors

555 Marlan Drive

Trappe, Maryland

21673

Phone: 1-800-345-4539

www.seanmann.com

deer hunting, hunting, reflections, Uncategorised

A Season Opener for a Failed Deer Hunter

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With the faintest, furtive greys of the predictably wet November day spreading from the east, I step out onto the deer camp deck and the chill of a pre-dawn drizzle bites into my bare legs.  I could have put pants on, but didn’t see the point just yet.

I grab the jug of orange juice off the picnic table and I swirl the grainy slush around inside of it.  The drink pours like cement into the red plastic cup and I chug it back as though it were a heavy dram of whiskey.  The chill of the ice tightens in my throat as I pour another cup before re-entering the cabin.

The wood stove crackles and pops.

“She’s looking a bit damp.” I announce, and a few grunts acknowledge my observation.  I set the jug of juice on the long wood table and a portable radio crackles some trendy country song.  In the back room I can hear gear being organized for the day.  A gas lantern hisses a yellow haze, and next to it a modern, battery-operated unit glows silent, clean, white light.

I sit in the stiff-backed wooden chair and unwrap a granola bar, content for a moment to watch the primal dance of grown men in tight deer camp quarters.  My father and uncles, in their late-50’s or older, are seasoned veterans of this ritual and they move purposefully around the perimeter, eating lightly, pulling on lined work pants, and double-checking their coat pockets or fanny packs.  These men travel light in the bush, but don’t ever want for comfort.

My cousins, and others in camp that are of my generation, move less smoothly.  We all seem to have more equipment in our ponderous backpacks, and we mill around testing grunt tubes, clipping thick foam seats to our belts, wriggling into space-age, skin-tight athletic shirts, and then pulling thermal hoodies or camo sweaters over those.

I’m a throwback.  I wear an old wool sweater over top of my Under Armour.

I get up and move upstairs to my corner of the cabin.  From the edge of my cot, I finish getting dressed before I stuff a couple of apples and a candy bar into my backpack.  My coat hangs over my bed, and I feel around in the pockets for my gloves and toque.  I find my two way radio and flick it on; the ‘full battery’ icon is good news.  Descending the stairs, I see that men are already filing out the door.

“Shawn, where’r you going today?” someone says.  I had not really thought of that yet.

“Beaver Pond, I think.” It is a snap choice to go to a run of hardwoods that forms a funnel between some ridges and, as the name implies, an old beaver pond.

“Okay,” my dad chimes in “Make sure you stay there until lunch.  A deer could come through there anytime.”

“Will do.” I tell him, even though I won’t if the wind changes and gets bad for that stand, or if I just get too cold.  Dad nods and heads out.  I slip on boots and grab my rifle off of the gun rack on the wall. I’m the second to last one out.

I exit the cabin door, a shining blaze orange beacon.  I look to my left and watch similar orange forms slip up the trail, silently headed to their posts.  Stepping off the deck, I reach into my pants pocket and find the clip for my .308.  With a satisfyingly snug ‘click!’ it nests into the rifle.  I check the safety with my thumb and then I work the bolt, smooth and almost automatically.

The familiar, metallic ‘snick-snick’ of the shell being chambered tells me that now, after a year off from it, I’m finally deer hunting again.

I push the safety off and then click it back on again.  I picked up that habit from my great uncle Bower, and I do it every time I load a gun.  Bower was there in 1995 when I shot my first deer, one of the first on the scene as I recall.  He was quite pleased with the little doe fawn I knocked down that day, and so was I.  Bower has been gone for over a decade now, but his memory floods back every November.

We smile and laugh when we tell stories of him.

I do not shoot many deer, and it seems that the ones I do shoot are never more than 2 ½ years old.  The others in my camp shoot plenty more deer, and those deer are oftentimes a lot bigger, so my lack of prowess has become, in a way, my badge of honour.  My feet move quietly on the damp grass and wet leaves, and through wind and spitting rain I hear the cabin door open and close one last time.

I don’t bother looking back, I know who it is, and I know where they are going.

They are going deer hunting, just like I am.

2015 turkey odyssey, hunting, turkey and turkey hunting

Requiem on Doing Things the Hard Way

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It’s been a season where I’ve done pretty much everything wrong, and in the moments where I’ve done something right, I’ve been dogged by bad luck and bad birds.

Turkey hunting is like that, and for me it is like that most of the time.

My opening weekend, my crescendo of failure if you will, has already been well documented in this forum, so we won’t relive the ignominy of that weekend.

Yes, I missed. Yes, I still feel awful. No, I don’t want to talk about it anymore.

The remainder of my season can be summed up in several shorter vignettes than the opus of mediocrity that my first weekend required.

I flew around Central Canada for the week following the opener, but the second Saturday of May found me up early, watching the weather. Storms were in the offing, and the weather was forecast to be so foul that even my father, a die-hard turkey hunter, declined a hunt.  I went out in the grey, dingy, but thankfully dry predawn and after owl and crow calling with no reply, I set out an Avian-X hen decoy and planted my arse under a broad tree on a local landowner’s patch.  Ten minutes after that a gobbler sounded off…30 yards behind and to my right. As daylight hit, I could see him in the treetop and he hammered again and again. Another bird gobbled 20 yards further away in the same direction, and within minutes hens fired up all around me.  I saw the gobbler fly down through the hardwoods, and he has my well-bred hunting ethics to thank for that. I could have shot him off the limb easily.

His hens and himself moved off, and I went silent for an hour.  Eventually I called a long string of yelps and both gobblers answered. Five minutes later they voluntarily gobbled without my coaxing, and they were closer.  Moments later I saw two black puffballs moving through the woods towards me. I readied my 870, and at around 70 yards I could clearly see that one of the birds was a very solid tom with an unbelievably wide and tall tail fan. As they approached slowly I began to look for openings for a shot, which was really nothing more than a premature hope because four hens promptly intervened between the longbeards and I, marching away and taking the two gobblers with them. The toms gobbled lustily as I pled for them to come back, but eventually they left. I was to experience no other action that day.

The following week found me in the nation’s capital from Sunday evening until Friday night where the whole week found me working by day and dreaming of long bearded tom turkeys by night. My wife and I had plans to head north to the farm early Saturday morning for the Victoria Day long weekend, but I was stung from the previous weekend and I had to give those birds another early morning try.  Once again I snuck in (even earlier than the prior Saturday) and once again I found a broad tree to get cozied up to. The woods were significantly greener by then, but this time no gobbling answered my sweet turkey love songs.  Upon leaving in my car, I was disheartened to encounter two gobblers, including one real beauty of a bird, trying to cross the county road a kilometre from where I had been hunting, and they were moving away from my preferred territory. Again my hunting ethics prevailed as I could have run one bird down with my bumper and easily shot the other off the roadside.

But where is the fun in that, I say?

We headed north and I knew that more hunting awaited me as the rest of my family and several friends were already stationed in the woods. A flash hunt in the afternoon turned up no gobblers although we did have a close encounter with a bearded hen on her nest.  I resolved to once again hunt the family farm the following morning, dawn found me set up in a hollow near a spot we call “The Sumacs”.

Because there are sumacs there.

Not really expecting to hear anything, and fairly jaded from the weeks prior, I was surprised to hear a gobbler sound off the width of 100 acres away (give or take a few acres of course). He was up in a tree and I did a fly down routine that sounded perfect in the natural amphitheater of the hollow I sat in.  The gobbler didn’t like it though, and I heard him gobble his way across one of our fields and then cross into a block on the other side of a county road. Packing up my decoy, I slipped through the bush until I was parallel with the spot I thought he crossed.  Back up in the woods I sat down and called eagerly, and he answered from well across the road and back into a bush lot there.  For a time he actually closed the distance, and I thought that my improbable gamble would pay off.  Surprisingly, after the tom had done some gobbling another bird sounded off, again across the road and the width of a lot to the south. Maddeningly, both birds started gobbling and closing the distance between themselves before meeting up, still across the road, in the bush, and out of sight.

They then proceeded to walk directly away from me on a heading that was arrow straight and due west.

I muttered an unrepeatable curse and went back to the farm for breakfast.

I played with my kids and puttered around the farm all afternoon, my will to hunt thoroughly degraded, but a family barbecue and many hunting stories shared that evening stoked my fires again. Hearing two birds gobbling south of the farm as they went to roost didn’t hurt either.  I was starting to know one of the gobbles by heart and part of me fantasized that the bird I missed in the early season was down there, waiting for me to exercise some redemption.

Now up to this point, one daring blonde coyote and my onerous shooting display of the early season notwithstanding, I had been the victim of the wiles of the game. Hens had flummoxed me, tight-lipped roost birds had foiled me, and the persnickety nature of turkeys at large had humbled me.  But that Monday morning, all the fault was mine.  Rain had once again been forecast, and Dad and I had (what I thought) was an airtight pact.  He had said that he would set an alarm for the morning and check in on me with a weather forecast.  He did neither.

So maybe some of the blame goes to Dad.

By the time I woke and realized it was not raining, I also realized it was quite late in the morning, from a turkey hunter’s perspective at least.  I scrambled into my gear and made the woods just as legal shooting light hit.  I had intentions to make for the corner of a cedar rail fence near a meadow’s edge as it was a spot where birds had been crossing, and I loaded my gun and double-timed it down the trail.  100 yards from the spot I saw the tail fan, or more accurately the back of the tail fan, of a strutting gobbler.  I ducked into a cedar thicket, and luckily I had not been busted, so that was good news.

The bad news was that the bird was strutting fifteen steps from where I had planned to set up.  I muttered the curse again, this time at myself.  Obscured in the cedar thicket, I slowly stalked ahead to a spot where I thought I could ambush the birds. I purred and clucked softly, and while I watched, the gobbler strutted around and bred three of the four hens that were with him.  They passed by me at what I thought was 80 yards or so before beginning to move off.  Getting desperate, I cackled and ran a series of fighting purrs.

Miraculously, two of the hens started working their way over. Then the third showed interest.  Then I saw something I had never seen before.

The gobbler dropped strut and began to run my way. I slowly shouldered the gun as he got ahead of the hens. Then the bird popped into strut while still out range and like a cattle-herder began to drive the hens away from me.  He chased them back across the meadow before the gang of them hopped a fence and went onto another property.  I circled through the woods to a spot that I once again thought would be ahead of them, only to see them walking straight south towards the village of Barrow Bay.

I shook my head, walked back to my car, and unloaded the gun. It was just a comedy of errors, bad luck, and ornery turkey behaviour. And I was ready to give up.

Fortunately, I came down with a wicked chest infection that laid waste to both my work week and to the torturous turkey behaviour I had been planning to subject myself to the following weekend.

Rain storms, and the religious theocracy that refuses to allow my township the liberty of Sunday gun hunting shortened my closing weekend to a mere four hours in the bush.  Not a single putt, cackle or gobble was to be heard.  I just sat under a tree for four hours, avoiding mosquitoes, and talking turkey talk to myself.  A passing rain soaked me, and the rumble of thunder made it official.

I was done for spring turkeys in 2015. So here I sit, perturbed at what the season ended up being but also grateful that I was able to be out as often as I was.  While I write this, a quiet rain is falling, and it is the tail end of the rainstorms that shortened my last day afield.  I have traded text messages throughout the day with my cousin and Dad, both of whom were hunting on the northern Bruce Peninsula for the closing weekend, and it seems that the weather conditions there were not significantly better.  So in a way this turkey season is ending with a whimper.  A wet, rainy, windy whimper.

Still, regardless of how uncooperative they were and how many fits they gave me, being out and observing the behaviour of the birds is as much goal as the harvesting of the bird, but sometimes the kill is just an additional benefit.  I’m learning with every hunt, and the day that stops may be the day I quit.  Every time I get beat, I learn something about how to come after a gobbler the next time, and with every beat I’m a little wiser to the survival skills of the wild turkey.

Dad says the same thing every year, and it is becoming a mantra for me in the turkey woods.

“If they were all easy to kill, there wouldn’t be any left.”

That is true…but just once I’d like to get an easy one.

2015 turkey odyssey, hunting, turkey and turkey hunting

It Continues in the Morning

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My alarm barked out and it felt like just moments earlier I had laid my head on the pillow.  I groaned and rolled over to silence it, then dangled my legs over the edge of the bed and slid on some socks.

4:20AM. Why did it have to be 4:20AM?

I checked the temperature outside and slipped into my turkey hunting uniform.  Warm socks, light shirt, camo pants.  The stairs groaned the way they always do in the old farm house, almost as if they were likewise complaining at being called into action at an hour so ungodly, but as my head cleared I became sharply focused on the task at hand.

There were turkeys in the trees behind the farm, and I intended to coax one into shotgun range.

I had a piece of toast and then re-inventoried my equipment.  License & tag? Check.  Shotgun shells? Check.  Various and sundry turkey-noise-making instruments? Check.  I was ready to go.  Walking out the door I wished my friend Lucas a good hunt with my uncle.  They were after a very mature bird in a spot that my uncle had permission on, and rather than crowd the joint I had the previous evening resolved to put a hunt on the birds on the farm property.

My other uncle had indicated that they had gone into the hardwoods adjacent to what we call ‘the hollow’ the previous evening, and I had a good idea of the lay of the land in there from a lifetime of experiences on the farm as well as from recent deer hunts in that exact area.  I trudged slowly and quietly throw a planted field, and reached a point of forest that forms the western treeline of the hollow.  I owl-called and not hearing a response from the immediate area, I moved quietly down a skidder trail into the enveloping darkness of the hardwoods.  It was 4:55AM and just the tiniest slivers of predawn light were filtering their way over the eastern horizon.  I placed one hen decoy on the skidder trail and moved about twenty yards away from it onto a ridge.  I found a great spot against a broad rock on the ridge and to my surprise it was a very comfortable seat.

I looked at my watch and it read 5:02AM.

For the next fifteen minutes I was absorbed into the dusky wilderness.  The soft titterings of songbirds rose around me, and a light breeze tickled my ear, but the overall silence was king.  It was not an oppressive, heavy silence but rather a calm edged with anticipation.  I closed my eyes for a few moments and when I opened them again the bleary nighttime had taken on cleaner resolution.  I thought about the morning to come and, like most turkey hunters, I imagined the various ways that the hunt might go down.  The contrast between the darkness in the hardwoods and the apparent increase in daylight on the adjacent field made me second guess my setup momentarily.  Then my doubts were erased as raspy gobble thundered from a treetop to the south of my position.

Just over a hundred yards south was a green cedar stand and it appeared that the gobbler was roosted in the hardwood surrounding those cedars.  He gobbled again, and I checked my watch.  It was just about 5:25 in the morning.  Initially, nothing answered his gobbles and a part of me hoped that he was a bachelor that particular day.  If I can help it, I’d rather not compete with hens for a tom’s attention.  Unfortunately after his third or fourth gobble from the roost, I heard a hen fire up.  Softly at first, but soon she was rasping away as well, bringing more distinct hen voices from their slumber as well.  I reached into my pocket and pulled out three shotgun shells, placing them in my lap.

I also slid the newest addition to my turkey calling arsenal from my vest.  The Woodhaven Cherry Classic crystal call took a resting spot beside my left leg, and after retrieving a striker I made a soft tree call.  The gobbler cut me off immediately and a hen yelped loudly over top of my calls.  Thinking that picking a scrap with the loud hen might be a good strategy I yelped and cutt and when the gobbler thundered she again called loudly over top of my series.  I waited for her to call again and this time I cut her off with a string of raspy, aggressive yelps and clucks.  She cutt hard and shouted me down once more, and the longbeard double-gobbled.  I set my call down, confident that both gobbler and hen knew exactly where I was.

The only conundrum now facing me was that I had to load my gun.  At the allotted hour I softly slid open the 870 action and with a delicateness of hand reserved for handling fine chinaware and newborn infants I placed a shell in and slid the action closed with a firm but quiet ‘snick!’’ Two more shells went into the gun smoothly and a few moments later I heard the birds fly down.

As soon as the birds touched ground, a hen riot the likes of which I’ve never heard erupted.  There was yelping and cutting and purring and flapping and more yelping.  Some sort of battle royale was going on a few ridges over from me and over it all the longbeard gobbled lustily.  I turned my left shoulder towards the racket and brought the gun to ‘ready’ position, fingers poised over the safety.  My pulse was pounding and my head was whirring with imagined visuals, such is the effect these birds have on my frail constitution.

A few moments later I heard running in the leaves and hen yelps growing near.  One hen, followed by a straggler went through an opening and made their way down a slight hill towards my decoy on the skidder trail.  The trotted up to the impostor hen and began yelping and purring, all the while circling and staring at the fake.  A couple of more hens fed slowly down that way as well and before long there were five or six hens on the ridge side and trail, all within thirty yards of me.  Then I saw the gobbler.

He was out of range and following the hens.  This time he wasn’t gobbling.  He was drumming and it was the clearest and most audible that I’d ever heard.  He dropped behind a bit of a ridge and my hope was that he would cross the same opening I had first seen the hens through.  A few moments later I saw the top of his tail fan over a ridge top immediately left of where the required opening was.  I estimated him to be about thirty-five or forty yards away, and he was strutting and spinning on the spot.  Most importantly, he was not offering me the slightest of shot opportunities.  This went on for what felt like a half-hour but was more realistically ten minutes.  My arms were comfortable and my left elbow rested on my left knee, but my breathing betrayed my motionless.  I was nearly panting with excitement and adrenaline pounded in my brain.  I needed him to take just a handful of steps to my right and he would be wide open and in range.

In the meantime, while I was pleading a psychic message to this gobbler, the hens had grown weary of bullying my decoy and when I cut my eyes right I could see that they were starting to move away.  To my dismay their movement was not past me to the fields as I had hoped, but along their backtrail deeper into the hardwoods.  About this time I saw the gobbler’s tail fan disappear, and knowing he had dropped strut and was likely leaving the hens, I had a moment of panic.  I clucked hard on my mouth call, but nothing happened.  I cackled loudly and he gave me a full periscope shot, but all I could see was his head, neck and a thin line of black feathers above the hilltop.  I had one blaring, conscious thought in my head at that moment.

“DO. NOT. SHOOT. THE. HILLSIDE!”

Instinctively obeying that monologue command, I raised the bead ever so slightly so that it was in line with the point that his jaw met his neck.  I squeezed the trigger and what sounded like cannon-fire echoed in the still morning air.

The bird jumped and started running, and the hens putted and sprinted off.  I leapt down the ridge side in a bound and ran twenty yards up the trail, passing my decoy before running back up to the spot where he had been standing.  I saw the faintest outline of a gang of wild turkeys necking their way through the hardwoods and disappearing from view.   My watch read 6:25AM.

I said some bad words.

Looking down I saw the leaves that the rapidly departing gobbler had kicked up and on close inspection of the area I didn’t find one speck of blood or a solitary black neck feather.  It became immediately apparent that for the second time in my turkey hunting career, I had blazed a round of copper-plated lead clean over the head of a gobbler.

I said some more bad words.

First I cursed out that lousy, hung-up gobbler, then the skittish, ornery hens and finally, and perhaps most accurately, about the gaping failures I exhibited myself.

Every move and decision I had made that morning put me in a position to succeed, until the ultimate action was upon me and then I had cocked it up.  It had been a picture perfect hunt and I failed in giving it the ending it so rightly deserved.  I was pissed off, utterly.

I knew that my Dad was across the county road and that he’d have heard my shot.  I knew that he’d want an explanation.  I knew my buddies were going to ride me mercilessly over this one.  I was right on all three accounts.  Worse than the ribbing of family and friends (which I have been taking all my life with grace and aplomb) was that although part of me knew I could not have played it differently, the self-loathing inherent in turkey hunting told me I should have waited longer and he would have crossed into a full opening, or that I should have let them walk and tried to circle them, or that all my poor decision-making had done was educate a gobbler and a bunch of hens, making them supernaturally more difficult to kill.  At the time it was hard for me to see it any other way than in the negative.

For their part, no one else had succeeded either (although none of them had thrown a few ounces of lead shot aimlessly into the forest either) and when I got back to the farm and had cooled down, we decided to head for breakfast.  My cousin Dane and his brother-in-law were out on a run-and-gun for a bird, but my brother, my uncle, my friend Lucas, and my friend Brian had all come up short on tagging a morning bird.  We headed to the diner for a bite to eat and as I stepped into the diner parking lot I looked down to see my cellphone ringing.  It was Dane.

In a flash hunt, he and his brother-in-law Chris had struck a longbeard and Chris had drilled the gobbler as it snuck in to investigate Dane’s calling.  So at least the morning wasn’t a total bust.  It was a nice hefty bird, maybe three-years old, with a solid beard and nice sharp spurs.

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A very nice Bruce Peninsula gobbler. Photo Credit: Lucas Hunter

We had some coffee, toast, bacon, and eggs and I was forced to re-live my failure of mere hours prior.  We also all took in the tale of Chris’s bird and we laughed at the inimitable embellishments and narration that only Dane can provide.

With bellies full we headed back to the farm for photos and to clean the bird.  A short rest later we planned the setups for the rest of the day.

The afternoon seemed primed for redemption.