Something Special

October 21, 2014 Shawn West Leave a comment

Something special happened on this past Thanksgiving weekend, and it was something I had been planning for the past five years.

In August of 2009, my first son was born and it was a distant wish at that time that one day I’d get to take him hunting with me. After all, not every son or daughter grows up to love the same things their parents love, and my wife and I had long previously agreed that neither of us were going to force our hobbies and pastimes on our kids.

As the years passed and my rubbery infant son became a rambunctious, energetic toddler, I made not-so-subtle attempts to ingrain a love of the outdoors and hunting into the boy. I provided duck and goose calls as toys, I tucked him under my arm as I watched hunting shows on TV and I often took him into the nearby county forests for nature hikes that, while not technically hunting trips, were always framed as such. I recall a distinct morning in 2012 when my son and I went twenty minutes up the road to a Halton Region county forest tract and walked the wide trails in a new fallen snow. I pointed out deer and rabbit tracks to him, and he made it a point to follow the prints as far as he could. He was beaming and laughing, and I was pretty sure that I had him on the right track.

My toddler son grew to become a small boy, one that was now imaginative and willful, and he began to express disappointment as a three and four year old that he couldn’t come with me to various goose, duck, deer, and turkey hunting trips. He pestered and asked constantly, crying and sulking when I would earnestly tell him he was too little and too young to participate. He had not yet learned even the basics of sitting quietly and he was well in advance of developing anything that a parent could characterize as ‘patience’. Some people, my wife specifically, accused me of not wanting to bring him along as a selfish gesture, thinking that I was concerned with my own success and the possible negative impacts a small, loud, mobile child would have on my hunting results.

The fact of the matter was quite the opposite. My primary concern was that my son’s first hunting experience should be one that was fun, in good weather, and surrounded by action and wild game. Deer hunting and turkey hunting can feature extended periods of inaction, and I certainly didn’t want my boy to think hunting was ‘boring’. At that moment I decided that when he reached his 5^th birthday I would take him on his first waterfowl hunt.

In my estimation, hunting ducks and geese is probably the absolute best way to bring a youth of any age into the hunting tradition. Game is usually active, and in the case of Canada Geese in my area, it is plentiful. For the most part, when the birds aren’t flying the kids can move around, talk, fidget, and generally just be kids. I also find that (my boys at least) really like the noise and commotion around waterfowl hunting, what with setting up and tearing down decoy spreads, the music of the duck and goose calls, waving of flags, and the frequent shooting. That said, hearing protection for young ears (and old ears too I would suppose) should be absolutely mandatory.

And so it was that on the October long weekend I went to bed too excited to so sleep. I remembered my first waterfowl hunts as a young boy and the impression that they made on me; to say I was feeling the pressure to provide a good hunt for my son would be an understatement. 5am came on early, as it usually does, and my alarm buzzed me awake. I was sharing a room at the farmhouse with my son, primarily because my wife didn’t want me to wake her or my other son (who is just a tender 2 year old). When I walked across the room and tapped him on the shoulder, he sprang to life, literally. He hopped out of bed and made for his hunting clothes with an energy that I don’t ever remember having. It was a somewhat chilled morning, and I went through the ritual layering of long underwear, multiple socks, and warm shirts twice in the farmhouse living room; once for my son and once more for me. It was not an emotional morning overtly; there were no clichéd moments of hair-tousling or teary smiles, or even hugs. We just got our equipment on and headed out the door.

Our large group of hunters met at a local gas station and planned the hunt. My son and I, along with three others would go to a nearby cut grain field that geese had been frequenting which was adjacent to a field of standing corn. The plan was to hide in the standing corn and go from there.

We set decoys under the waning moonlight of a rapidly approaching October dawn, and my son rambled around in the shadows, carrying Bigfoot decoys in an awkward but capable fashion. We found our spots inside the first few rows of standing corn, and thanks to a miniature folding seat that one of the hunters with us lent me, I had my boy comfortable and still as the starry night morphed into a calm, bluebird morning. Nothing was immediately flying, and we turned my son free to wander in with the decoys and down the line, where he asked questions and chatted with the other hunters. We spied a thin string of geese to the southwest, and my son scampered back to his hideout next to me. We flagged and called the geese into range, and as they worked another group of honkers fell into an approach behind them. The first group landed, and we worked the back flock, hoping to get them to commit.

Inexplicably, the back flock made it to within sixty yards or so and then slid off line and made for an exit. Simultaneously the group that had landed jumped up and began to depart. Far to my right someone called the shot, and I swatted the nearest departing bird. More shots rang out to the right and we had brought four geese to hand. I trotted out to the bird I had shot and brought it back to my hiding spot. My son hopped off his little seat and came over to inspect the goose, which was a good-sized bird. He asked if it was dead and he tried to pick it up; it was a just a bit too awkward and heavy for him to hoist, but he gave it a good shot. A few more groups came near and although we shot okay, it was a bit of a slow morning overall. But the tepid bird movement couldn’t dampen my spirits, and my son was buoyant to be out hunting. Eventually his small stomach pressed me to get him some breakfast, and the rest of the crew thought bacon and eggs was a solid plan.

Just as he had in the pre-dawn, James went to the decoys and started to haul them in one at a time, gripping them awkwardly and more than once he almost took a spill in the muddy field. I was smiling pretty much throughout, and it was certainly one of those ‘proud Dad’ moments that you don’t forget. He was all smiles too, and when I asked him if he had enjoyed the hunt he blurted out that he never wanted to stop hunting.

One of our hunting companions that day was GK Calls Field Pro-Staff member Scott McDonald, and after all the decoys were packed and the guns cased, he pulled out a knife and pried one of his several goose leg bands off his lanyard and gave it to my son. My son was a little shy and confused about what the band meant, but once it was explained to him he wouldn’t let go of it. I had an extra lanyard and a beginner duck call laying around, and it is safe to say that this memento has not been out of his sight in the week and a half since he received it.

So I guess I have him hooked.

That afternoon my son stayed in while myself and a few others hit a local cut cornfield and while we saw many birds, we just could not coax them to commit. One group of three strayed too close to my end of the setup and I scratched down two of them. We sat the field until the end of legal light, but that pair would be the only birds we would get that evening. When I arrived back at the farm, my son was pestering my Dad to go out in the morning for another hunt. I asked who he wanted to sit with and my son was adamant that he would sit the morning hunt with his Grandpa, so that was pretty cool. I had never had the opportunity to hunt with my grandfather, so this was another one of those special moments that only comes around once.

I mean how many ‘first’ hunts can there be?

The Sunday morning was a repeat of the Saturday morning; James popped out of bed energetically, we ate a quick breakfast and geared up, making the field in the pre-dawn. My son again helped out with the decoys but this time, instead of hunkering down in the grassy fence line with me, he walked down the field edge and disappeared into the grass with my Dad. The wind was up and it was markedly colder than it had been twenty-four hours earlier, and the birds flew earlier. We were standing up chatting when a group of three mallards buzzed the spread. No one fired a shot.

Shortly after that we flagged and called to a group of geese that swung wide past my friend Brian, but still within my friend’s normally lethal wheelhouse. He emptied his gun and all three birds winged away unscathed, which sometimes happens. While we tried to figure out how that had transpired we saw another group and we worked them down the other side of the decoys, right in front of my Dad and son. Dad reached out with his Remington 1100 and connected with one of the birds, folding it up instantly. When he retrieved it, we noticed that it was not just any run-of-the-mill small goose, but it was a Cackling Goose, a first for Dad in nearly fifty years of waterfowling. My son had no difficulty holding this one, and neither did his younger brother when we all made our way back to the farm later that morning.

We worked more birds and brought a few more to hand, with one winging away wounded before crash-landing in the next field over. My Dad took my son across the shallow ditch we were hiding next to, and they went on the retrieve. It was a convenient time to do so, as my son was getting a bit chilled and going for a walk in the sun perked his spirits up again. This retrieve marked the end of the morning and we once again packed the decoys and headed in for breakfast.

Over pancakes and bacon my son told me all about the hunt with his Grandpa, how Grandpa told him how to hunt geese, and how he helped his Grandpa find the goose that “ran away” as he put it. That afternoon my son and I crashed into blissful afternoon naps before enjoying the traditional Thanksgiving dinner with all the cousins, uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews, grandparents, and friends. It was a fitting way to end the weekend, and it was an apt reflection of the passing on of family traditions to the next generations.

For my part it looks like I may never get to hunt geese alone again. My new hunting partner is already asking about going every weekend we can, and that suits me just fine.

hunting ethics, the hypocrisy line

Fair Chase & The Hypocrisy Line

July 30, 2014 Shawn West Leave a comment

It has been some time since I last had the time or inspiration to write something here, but a recent conversation, as well as some troubling media that I’ve seen has prompted my crotchety and opinionated side to come out for this particular post. Despite the murky and nebulous philosophical wrangling that is about to take place, this may become an item that will make recurring appearances throughout whatever lifespan this blog has.

Let me start with an anecdote that will nicely frame what follows.

When I was a much younger and much more academic man, I had a professor that really influenced how I viewed the world. He was relatively young by academic standards, being perhaps only seven or eight years my senior. He was extremely intelligent in matters historical, and he was very articulate. He was of a level of handsomeness that made every young female coed in my program an instant Scottish history devotee. He also was as passionate about soccer as I was, and he played the game in a similarly direct fashion to myself. Very often we would play a pick-up match for a couple of hours and then go grab some cold beer and pub food. All in all, a rather nice fellow who became a bit of a mentor for me, as at the time I was seriously considering a career in academia.

So where is all this pseudo-academic bro-mance going, and what in the blazes does it have to do with hunting?

This particular fellow was not a hunter, but he wasn’t an anti-hunter either, as I recall. I was much more passionate about converting non-hunters at the time, but he just wasn’t interested in the sport. Once over several post-soccer beers(or possibly post-exam beers, I can’t precisely recall) I directly asked him if he saw an inherent hypocrisy in his not being a hunter, even though he was a carnivore. He said no. I pressed him more, and while not a direct quote he answered me along the lines of this: everyone has what he called, at the time, a hypocrisy line. I’m sure he didn’t invent the term, and I’m sure others have recognized its existence, but I had not really considered the concept. Since then it has always intrigued me, and it is something that has really framed how I view the world, so I guess this professor actually did teach me something after all (his European Reformation class, which really was excellent, notwithstanding).

The hypocrisy line, which I have found to be a sure of a test for any argument, is basically the point in any given debate, discussion or decision at which one is willing to compromise a stated value. That value can be almost anything, from big important things like religious and political viewpoints, down to trivial things like which brand of whiskey you are preferential to (although I consider whiskey loyalty to be a VERY BIG thing). Make no mistake, the hypocrisy line exists, and it is something that people are constantly reconciling themselves to, even if they don’t realize they are doing it. It is extremely apt to understand the hypocrisy line if you participate as a hunter, and it is as pervasive as it is complicated.

By definition the hypocrisy line is intensely personal. No one knows your level of hypocrisy more than you yourself. And since I don’t want to make any presumptions about you, I’ll talk about my own personal hypocrisy line as it pertains to hunting.

First and foremost, my hypocrisy line pertains to the concept of fair chase. Right off hand, anything prohibited as illegal is by definition, beyond the realm of real valid debate. I’m sure there are hunting traditions that may fall outside the current structure of what the law allows, but that isn’t up for debate. Break the law, shoot over your limit, or endanger others, and the hypocrisy line isn’t applicable. But more interesting things start to happen when types of hunting are legal, because then the reconciliation with the hunting ‘ethic’, as it were, comes more tightly into focus.

I would state explicitly that canned shoots, high-fence hunting, or any other method that restricts not only the immediate, but also the longer term ability of game to evade the hunter are not “fair chase hunting” scenarios. I am a very large proponent of the ideals of the Boone & Crockett club, and a lot of my pre-existing bias about fair chase comes from their mission statement, as well as the ideals handed down by my hunting mentors (which I consider to be a positive for of brainwashing).

But my belief in fair chase comes at a price, and that price is my own personal hypocrisy line.

I am rabidly opposed to baiting for bears. I consider the practice of habituating a bear to a set location, and sometimes part of the day, for what is essentially a feeding time is deplorable. One could have as easy a time going to the local zoo and shooting a bear when the frozen meatsicle is thrown into their exhibit. I consider bear baiting at large to be an act of standing and shooting, and not even remotely equivalent to “hunting”. But in terms of explicit fair chase principles almost every organization in the world considers it ethical and accepted. So all my moral outrage won’t mean spit. Proponents of the practice of bear baiting point to the benefits of predictable, humane shots on basically stationary targets, as well as allowing the hunter time to make informed decisions surrounding the sex of the bear and whether it is a mature, healthy animal. Fair enough, but still not as thorough an argument as would be required to change my mind.

However, I am not opposed to hunting waterfowl over recently harvested grain fields. In the eyes of many, even myself on occasion, this constitutes a hypocrisy. Much like baiting of bears, hunting ducks and geese over naturally occurring waste grain is legal in almost every jurisdiction. Where the difference for me lies is that the corn or wheat or peas or rice or whatever it may be is not being placed specifically as a waterfowl attractant, at least not where I hunt. But countless outfitters, guides, and private landowners also plant grain fields with the explicit purpose of attracting waterfowl, so the issue can be murky. Geese and ducks also become habituated to the food sources, and I’ve had on more than one occasion moments when geese were landing around me in a corn field, and I wasn’t even hiding. The birds just wanted to eat there, and it didn’t matter that I was standing around in the middle of the field.

It is completely legal to bait for deer, and food plotting is big business. I have hunted over bait sites of corn and apples for deer, and although I have never had any success in doing so, I have several family and friends that have shot deer in this method. Some of them have a sticky ethical conundrum, but others don’t, and I guess that’s fine. My hypocrisy line here is that I don’t consider this as egregiously unethical as bear-baiting because deer respond to bait nocturnally in general, and the predictability of deer frequenting bait is sporadic (based on trail camera photos I have reviewed) than with bears. Not much of an argument, I know, but that’s my hypocrisy line. I’m not completely comfortable with food-plotting, but again there is no truly debatable difference in hunting over food plots and hunting over bait, and if I’m going to be okay with one, I suppose I have to be okay with the other.

Advances in gear and equipment have also muddied the waters in which the definition of fair chase swims. High-powered firearms, precision optics, modern camouflage and scent-control, and ultra-realistic game calls (when deployed in the hands or mouth of a competent user) have all tilted the playing field, if only slightly, in favour of the hunter. Riflescopes can now provide hunters with precise aiming points based on wind direction and strength, caliber and bullet weight, and angle of the shot. All the hunter has to do is get within range and pull the trigger.

So is that the litmus test of hunting now? Is it just a matter of getting in range and pulling the trigger? Because these are no small feat in some cases, maybe they are. Are the lost arts of wingshooting, range estimation, and good old-fashioned woodsmanship becoming just that; lost?

I myself have reaped the benefits just this year of technology, on what was arguably the greatest hunt of my life to date. Ultra-comfortable footwear saw me up and down kilometers of mountain trails. Turkey calls using modern materials and realistic decoys drew the gobbler into range. Modern high-powered shotshells delivered their payload through a machined ultra-full choke into a very small shooting window, with lethal results. Hell, my companion and I even drove halfway into the mountains before starting our hunt; sixty years ago we would have had to packhorse in our camp in the hills and valleys, if we could even entertain a spring turkey hunt at all!

Did I have an ethical conundrum regarding ‘fair chase’ on my hands when that tom turkey fell over? I can say confidently that I did not. So is that my hypocrisy line, or is that just modern hunting? And, in a more complex examination, is it both? Is modern hunting an already hypocritical endeavor?

This is how I manage to remain unpopular, by the way.

Perhaps the bottom line is that this entire application of the hypocrisy line into hunting is a byproduct of our human evolution. After all, did ancient societies debate whether a thrown spear was more ethical than an atlatl or an arrow propelled by the first archer’s bow? Was there an argument about right and wrong when primitive hunters learned to mimic the calls of their prey? Probably not, because I suspect survival and sustenance were higher up on the list of primitive hunting priorities than the moral complications posed by what they defined as technology.

With that said, the modern hunting reality, despite the position of many vested interests, is that we are not in a survival situation. We are all (hopefully) lovers of wild game on the table, but our sustenance does not hinge on the hunt anymore, and these changes are what brings the ethical debate of fair chase into such focus. With no compelling survival reasons related to much of what constitutes modern hunting in the developed world, justification and precision in rhetoric is required. For many this justification or debate is extraneous and, dare I say, bullshit.

But that would be taking too narrow a view. The linear thinking and closed-minded in the hunting fraternity will argue that no justification for the hunting tradition in the modern world is required. The linear thinking and closed-minded in the anti-hunting community will seize upon that and exploit it to their benefit. Because that’s how this song and dance has always gone.

Reconciling how you hunt with what your tolerance for hypocrisy is should not be a shameful process, nor should such self-examination be frowned upon or chided. A constant reevaluation of the social construct can raise troubling demons, but it can also enlighten and enhance the experience of the hunt, and it can prompt new challenges to the hunter willing to take them on. Having shot turkeys with a shotgun, perhaps I should try an archery hunt? Being reasonably skilled with a goose call, maybe I should attempt to ambush or stalk the birds instead.

I’m still a terribly unlucky and poorly skilled deer hunter so I need all the help I can get on that front.

In some ways, I suppose I would be happier if I had never encountered the concept of the hypocrisy line all those years ago as an inebriated undergraduate. And I’m sorry if this post becomes the first introduction of the concept for you; feel free to ignore it going forward. But if you choose to embrace it as a means of questioning the world, and in this case, the hunting tradition, do not be surprised by the opposition you find, and do not fear what you may learn about yourself.

Being out in the woods and fields is possibly the most enriching activity in my life right now, and I feel I owe it to something that gives me that much to understand its meaning.

2014 turkey odyssey, turkey and turkey hunting

Family, Friends, and Wild Turkeys on the Bruce Peninsula

June 7, 2014 Shawn West Leave a comment

Not even four days removed from the end of what was an epic adventure in southeastern British Columbia, I found myself loading all my gear (as well as my wife, as well as my two sons who are both under the age of five) into the car for a trip to the family farm on the Bruce Peninsula. Pulling into the laneway, the weather forecast was for sunny skies, but temperatures well below seasonal for the third weekend of May. I was thankful for the coat and long underwear that I packed as a precaution. It was the Victoria Day long weekend, and my cousin Dane had informed me that there were a pile of birds around.

Two weeks prior, I had been up on the Bruce Peninsula, ultimately being unsuccessful in helping a very good friend of mine tag his first turkey, while just the previous weekend, while I was slogging my way through the ridges and valleys of the Cranbrook area, my brother had put down a dandy tom turkey on a Sunday morning. The bird my brother shot had come on a line, marching all the way in to a strutter decoy setup, and Donavon had drilled him. It was a great hunt, made all the more special because it was caught on film, a first for our hunting group. I showed the video to Chris that night, and it only fueled our eventual success. Dane informed me before I arrived on the Friday evening that there was plenty more chances like that to be had.

He wasn’t kidding.

My dad and I decided to hunt a piece of forest and field country just to the south and across the road from the farm, as Dane (who put in yeoman’s work as a scout and impromptu guide this year) informed us that a big fella had staked that out as his territory. Dad made a move into the bush a kilometer or so from me, while I set up against a cedar rail fence near a clearing that was dotted with cedar stands. I set up under a gloomy but clear morning sky, with the near-full moon lingering persistently overhead. As dawn broke, the crows fired up and went crazy, but despite my best efforts to strain an ear, I didn’t hear a single gobble from the roost. I did some calling sequences of my own, each time hoping to hear an old tom rattle the leaves and make his way over, but nothing seemed to be doing that morning. I picked up my decoy and began to make my way back to the farm, taking the very long and circuitous route down some gravel roads and through some hardwoods, just in case.

I made the farmhouse and spoke with Dad, who was flabbergasted that I hadn’t heard all the gobbling that was going on over by him; I began to worry that perhaps my hearing was deteriorating. Apparently, Dad had heard the tom gobble very well on the roost, but after fly down the bird moved the other way and went a bit quiet. It was nice to know I was near one, but rather than go and put a flash hunt on the gobbler, I decided it was a good opportunity to take my wife and sons into town for breakfast. While I washed the camo makeup off my face, I received a text from Dane. He and his brother Lukas had gone out with their brother-in-law (like my BC friend, he is also named Chris) and taken a dandy gobbler using almost the same set up that had proven successful for my brother the week before, and once again, the whole hunt had been captured on video. This bird had taken a long time to cross a field, but he eventually had to come over and kick the strutter decoy. As soon as he made the kick on the fake gobbler, Chris took him. My brother called that video “The Gobbler Landmine” for reasons best explained by watching the video. The gobbler didn’t even flop, such was Chris’s handiwork on that particular hunt.

I checked Chris’s bird over after finishing breakfast and I had to admit that it was a bruiser. It had one of the biggest heads I’d ever seen on a gobbler, and he was well-endowed with a thick beard and sharp spurs; as fine a specimen of a mature gobbler as one would find.

Chris’s May Long Weekend Gobbler

After reconnoitering at the farm for a while, Dane, my brother Donavon, and I decided to take a cruise all around the local spots and try to drum up some action on a gobbler or two. Dane had permission to hunt about a dozen spots, and over half of them held toms from time to time. All three of us exceed 200lbs so when we hopped in the car my wallet winced at the hit my mileage was about to take, but we were hunting, so what the hell. We cruised through Dyer’s Bay and Cape Chin, stopping often on sideroads and laneways to cold call and listen for gobblers. We did plenty of glassing as well, hoping to find a lone mid-afternoon gobbler that we could persuade to play our game. Although we had some visuals on hens and a few birds in a spot that we couldn’t hunt, we made our way into Ferndale for some gas and refreshments. I chugged back a Gatorade and popped a few chips in my mouth, a regular spring diet familiar to anyone that has tried to run and gun on wild turkeys, while Dane pitched two options.

We could make a move on the bird in Barrow Bay that my dad had heard that very morning, as we had a visual on him earlier in the cruise while he was loafing inaccessibly in a field. Our other option was to cruise into a relatively unpressured area south of Barrow Bay and try our luck. Dane had seen birds there previously, but he hadn’t nailed down explicit permission with the landowner. As luck would have it, we found the landowner in his laneway, and secured the green light to go in and hunt his property. He was adamant that we shoot any groundhogs we came across as well, and we were all okay with that policy. Dane had seen two gobblers on the property, and it was situated not far from a Bruce Trail parking lot. We parked on the side of the road, and quietly unpacked two Avian X hens and the same manufacturer’s jake decoy offering. By about 4pm, we had found a little hollow that looked promising and set the fakes out at 30 steps before settling into the shade at the base of some broad hardwoods. My brother remarked in a whisper that this was just the kind of place that felt like it had a gobbler in it, and I hoped he was right.

The sun shone and a cool breeze blew in off of Georgian Bay, but stillness reigned. Trees were budding, but the leaves were late in coming on, depriving us of the soothing rustle of new greenery in the cool spring wind. Dane and I alternated calling off and on for about twenty minutes with no response, and I was nearly dozing off in such an idyllic scene, when Dane yelped and cut hard on his box call. A throaty gobble shook the woods over some ridgelines to our right, and when Dane called again the gobbler cut him off; the tom was closing the distance and he was doing it pretty quickly. Both my brother and I positioned ourselves for shots; I had the decoys covered dead ahead of me, while Donavon guarded against anything sneaking in from the right.

A pretty decent looking setup that would prove successful.

The tom gobbled intermittently, and at one point he seemed to be hung up at about 90 yards inside the bush, which is a position I hate to be in. Any turkey hunter worth his salt knows that this is the situation where most hunts end: the tom gobbles well but hangs up in a spot where you can’t see him, but you know damn well that he can see you. Eventually he sees something he doesn’t like or he just loses interest before wandering off and leaving you to wonder what the hell you did wrong. For at least a half-hour we called the bird and while he never left, he never came into visual range. I was in a half-ready position and my arms were getting wobbly from holding mannequin stillness for nearly thirty minutes. That was about the time I thought that this was going to go to script in a way I didn’t like. Sure enough the next time he gobbled he was walking away, and then he sounded off again even further off moments later. Had he caught movement? Was he bored with a stubborn hen that wasn’t moving towards him? Who knew, but I lowered my gun, reached for my slate call and purpleheart striker and then started throwing a string off excited yelps and fast, hard cutting at him. He double-gobbled and miraculously started to come back. I ran another string of fast yelps and purrs, and he gobbled again, closer than he had been at any time before. Dane took up the gauntlet on his own slate call and it seemed we had him on a string.

I set the call and striker down and settled into a shooting position again, fingers poised over the safety on my 870. After a few more minutes I heard him spitting and drumming at about sixty yards away; he was just inside the tree line. Seconds after that I heard one last close gobble and saw him pop into strut before he made the clearing. He was puffed up and the late afternoon sunshine made him glow in that coppery-purple sheen that haunts a turkey hunter’s dreams and keeps our like coming back time after time to chase these magnificent birds. He was eyeing up the three decoys, and although he didn’t gobble again, he spit, and drummed, and strutted at sixty steps for what seemed like an eternity. In that painstakingly slow way that old, cagey gobblers do he took measured step after measured step towards the fakes closing the distance a couple of feet before going into that stock-still pose that makes you afraid to even blink or draw a breath, lest you spook him at the penultimate moment. It’s almost supernatural what a strutting gobbler at close quarters does to me, and the adrenalin, anticipation, and even a modicum of fear all make for an intoxicating, addictive experience that only the initiated can relate to.

Step by step he made his way in, and at fifty yards he stopped in half-strut just to my right and didn’t move for a solid three or four minutes. I was locked up from a positional perspective, because when he broke into the meadow I had my gun muzzle pointed down and to the left of the middle decoy, with my cheek half on the stock. He had spent fifteen or twenty minutes on closing not even fifteen yards, and I was getting an incredibly stiff neck while my left elbow dug sharply into the meat of my left thigh. My right side was stiffening up too and it isn’t hyperbole to say that I was suffering physically for this bird. My pattern is solid out to fifty yards, and for a moment I thought about doing the slide move on this old bird and just whipping the bead onto him and busting him before he knew what had happened. But a part of me recalled something I had read in Tenth Legion. To paraphrase Tom Kelly, I knew that this bird was not on a timeline, but I also knew there was no reason for me to force the situation. Eventually he’d strut or turn his eyes away from me and that was when I’d make the move. I was hurting, but Christ was he ever pretty just standing there with his feathers glossy and his head glowing like a soft blue light bulb.

Finally, the old tom broke his statuesque pose and started into the jake decoy. He was walking purposefully at first but at about thirty yards he broke into a jog. I slid the safety off, and part of me knew that things were going to end there soon. It was going to end with either a dead gobbler or with me missing on a proverbial lay-up, but it was going to end nonetheless. My pulse was pounding and my arms were shaking, but I was focused on one thing: making my move as soon as his eyes weren’t on me.

He sidled up to the jake decoy and bumped it slightly, causing the decoy to spin on its stake. That movement set the old gobbler off and he immediately hauled off with jumping kick and a wing slap to the fake. As soon as he made the first kick, I whipped the gun to the ready and steadied my arms.

He had no idea I was in his world at that point, so focused was he on flogging the decoy.

As the fake jake spun again, the gobbler jumped right onto the intruder’s back, kicking and swinging his wings the whole time. Half-standing on the decoy’s tail, and with his head at full periscope and his back to me I bore down and sent the load of #6’s downrange. He took the hit and rather than flop, he just crumpled down and toppled slowly over, spinning the decoy around one last time as he did so. I pumped the gun and slid the safety back on. It had been just under two hours between his first gobble and my shot.

I’m obviously pretty happy with this.

Dane was certain that I had just shot his $100 decoy, and I was pretty sure that I had just become the new owner of a $100 decoy full of #6 sized holes. But more importantly, for a second, I couldn’t whoop or shout with joy or hardly express anything. I was just washed in a sense of relief and reflection; that old tom had made us work for him for sure, and I exhaled a relieved sigh and let things sink in for a second. I stood up and made a beeline for Dane’s jake decoy to assess the damage; I can say for sure that if I wasn’t sold on Avian X turkey decoys before, I was then. Either I had pulled off an act of precision shotgunning beyond compare (unlikely) or the peppering of the decoy at 30 steps with a dozen pellets or more hadn’t left a single hole (or even a noticeable paint defect) on it. The word ‘durable’ immediately springs to mind.

I put my boot on the gobbler’s neck and grabbed his feet, avoiding the spurs that looked like straight daggers to me. Both would come in at just under an inch and they certainly had a point on them. He had a nice beard, but again the end was frayed and brittle betraying that perhaps a bit of it had frozen off in the hard winter that struck the Bruce Peninsula this year (check Google Images if you’re interested in seeing some eight foot snowdrifts). I tagged the bird before we took some photos, and by that point relief had given way to that goofy joy that just makes a successful turkey hunter smile constantly.

We stopped off on the way back to the farm and weighed the gobbler. He came in just a hair over 21lbs, making him the heaviest bird I have ever shot, and that combined with his flogging of the decoy along with the overall circumstances of the hunt made him a true trophy for me. Later, it sunk in that I had just managed to take the two subspecies of Canadian wild turkeys in two separate provinces separated by over 3000km in the space of five days, and with no false modesty I can say that I felt pretty damn good about myself. Even more meaningful was taking photos with my two sons and seeing their interest in the bird’s head, tail, and gorgeous plumage.

Moments like that are what my dad calls “Passing it On” and seeing my wonder, awe, and love of wild game reflected in the eyes of my sons in that moment was a feeling almost as addictive as the one I get from chasing a sun-dappled spring gobbler in the green fields and rejuvenated forests of a place full of my family’s heritage.

And I still had one more Ontario tag in my pocket.

2014 turkey odyssey, turkey and turkey hunting

2014 Merriam’s Turkey Adventure, Part Three: Panic, Elation, Satisfaction

June 4, 2014 Shawn West Leave a comment

3:15am came far earlier than I had anticipated, but I was galvanized to put in a hard last shift before flying out that night. I was feeling the pressure to show my friend Chris that I actually knew how to hunt turkeys, and I believe (although he didn’t show it) that Chris was feeling the pressure to put a gobbler in front of my gun barrel.

We made the trailhead in a chilly and dim pre-dawn, previously determined to make it to a clearing for an initial set up on birds that we hoped were roosted nearby. We began to make the uphill walk to the clearing, and after 300 yards or so, I stopped and got out my barred owl call. I heard a distant coyote bark just before I made a call, and then, as my owl call broke the still dawn air, I heard the sound that I had been hoping for. A tom gobbled, and he was inside 100 yards. I turned to Chris and gestured to him that a bird was gobbling, but he thought I was referring to the coyote. I was shocked that he hadn’t heard what I had. I owled again, and nothing responded. Chris was ready to move on, and I was questioning my own sanity…I was absolutely positive that I had heard a gobbling turkey.

The bird gobbled again on his own, and this time I was sure Chris heard it. His eyes told me so.

I’m pretty sure I was grinning like an idiot while we exchanged hand signals outlining where we wanted to set up on the bird. We resolved to move quietly back down the trail to a small clearing that had a convergence of game trails on it, where we set out my two Zink Avian X hens and got ourselves situated under some broomed out Douglas fir trees. It had been a nightmare deflating, rolling, and packing around the decoys, but I was quite pleased to have them at that very moment. Within minutes of setting the decoys out, I saw a light frost developing on their backs. In the excitement of a gobbler sounding off from the roost, I had not noticed that the air temperature was hovering in the mid-single digits.

The bird gobbled steadily as we set up, and after we were comfortable I did some light calling on my box call. The bird hammered back and then really ratcheted up his gobbling. I didn’t have any trouble keeping tabs on him when he flew down, and slowly but steadily he began to make his way down towards our position. Two game trails that I could see converged on the clearing about twenty yards from my position, and as the gobbling came closer I could picture the bird coming down the left side trail, and twice I could hear him walking on the other side of a small ridge. He moved back and forth, concealed by the ridge, gobbling often. I moved slightly to get my gun in position, hopeful that by the time he could see the decoys, I could see him.

If he cleared the trail, he would be in range for certain.

I held the gun steady for what seemed like an eternity, and since the gobbler didn’t own a watch and presumably didn’t care about my aching, trembling arms and increasingly frozen fingertips, he made arduously slow progress towards our set up.

Then I heard a deer snorting behind me. Close by. Think inside of twenty steps. I turned my head to see a doe whitetail standing in our scent column, blowing an alert over and over again. This went on for a minute or so, and the next time the turkey gobbled, he was farther away…then further still. I lowered my 870 and yelped excitedly on my pot call, throwing in some aggressive cutting. The next gobble was closer but more to my right. I shifted slightly while the bird gobbled again and again, seemingly hung up out of sight behind that blasted ridge. I still had not laid eyes on him, but I was beginning to get a feel that this was as cagey a public-land bird as I’d hunted anywhere in Ontario. He gobbled hard and kept making a racket, and keeping an ear on him wasn’t tough, but soon my worst fear was fulfilled.

I heard a hen yelping near to our setup, and then I heard his gobbling change. I was certain that she was taking him away. Over and over he gobbled, each time further up the hill from where he had been just moments before. Then he went silent. He had found his hen, and gobbling just wasn’t something he was interested in doing any more. My heart sank, and I looked over to Chris. We nodded to one another before slowly gathering the decoys and strategizing our next steps.

We decided to make a circle around ahead of the birds, and we dropped into a gully off the trail so we could move unseen past the birds. After moving a few hundred yards back up the trail, I blew a crow call and the turkey let one solitary gobble slip out. He was perpendicular to our position, across the trail, and well inside of forty yards. We decided that the best move was to have me crawl up onto the trail side, and hopefully yelp the bird into range with a mouth call. I silently shed my vest, decoy, and coat before beginning a slow, ten yard belly-crawl up onto the edge of the road. I poked my head around a stump and saw a turkey fifteen steps from me. It was the hen and she was oblivious to my presence. I purred and yelped aggressively and she cut me off every time. I was hoping she would come onto the road and drag the gobbler behind her. Instead she headed back further up the hill and into the woods, yelping and complaining all the way. I still had not seen the gobbler, and in the whole conversation I’d had with the hen he had not gobbled once. I was beginning to fear that he had left the area.

I reverse belly-crawled back down into the gully, and we planned our next move…again. I was certain the gobbler had made for the hills, and I was thinking of making a very large loop to a spot over a mile away. Chris had similar ideas but his range was more limited; he was pitching a spot just over a few hundred yards ahead where the pine ridge that the bird had been hunkering in transitioned into a more open, meadow-like area. He knew the lay of the land and I would have been a fool to second-guess him.

I’ve never moved so quietly and rapidly as I did to make the spot Chris had in mind, and we once again set out the decoys. We resolved not to call or make a sound for at least twenty minutes, and for that whole time I was cursing the turkey hunting gods. I cursed them for sending the deer by to snort at me, I cursed them for the wily old hen that had led that gobbler astray, and I even cursed them for providing the gobbler in the first place. After all, my hopes had been raised, only to be dashed cruelly. It had been a hard three days of hunting and my feet hurt, which I also blamed on the turkey hunting gods. I had temporarily forgotten about the beautiful scenery, the abundance of wild game, and the good times spent in the woods, the truck, and the kitchen with a great friend. But getting beaten by a turkey does that to a man.

Almost in disinterested fashion, I yelped plainly on my pot call after twenty minutes of abject silence. Before I finished the sequence a hammered gobble cut me off. The game was back on and the gobbler was in front of me inside of sixty yards.

I shouldered my shotgun again, and within seconds I saw the heads of two turkeys pass quickly through an opening forty yards to my right. I turned ever so slightly to get the gun downrange on them, while the bird gobbled again unprovoked. I could see the broad tail fan of a bird that went in and out of strut, and the bright red head of the turkey began to approach one of my fake hens. I saw the bird gobble again and I began to search with my eyes for an opening that would allow me to slide in a shot.

Another fir tree obscured the gobbler from my sightline, but it also meant that he could not see me. Eventually, I could see the bird’s fire-engine red head moving out from either side of the tree as he approached my decoy, and I kept the front sight on his throat as he closed the gap. Finally, at thirty steps, and with both his head, and his tail up in half-strut, I could restrain myself no longer. My shotgun barked, and the bird dropped out of sight. I stood up and made a run to an open spot (although in truth, I don’t really remember my feet touching the ground) and I saw a turkey sprinting off before getting up and flying back into the pines from whence the birds had appeared.

Had I missed?!

About to swear out loud at my incompetence, I looked to my right, and there in a depression next to the tree was the still, lifeless shape of a Merriam’s gobbler. From my seated position I never would have seen him fall.

“Did you get him?!” was the cry from where Chris was sitting. Apparently he couldn’t see the downed bird either.

“He’s down!” was all I could shout back. I let out a whoop of joy and Chris came running over for high fives and slaps on the back. I wonder if he felt his feet touch the ground either.

Seemed like the most appropriate time to take a selfie.

I put my bootheel on the turkey’s neck and grabbed his feet, whereupon the gobbler lamely flogged my right shin with a wing beat or two. I was shaking like a leaf, and adrenalin hammered in my veins. I vaguely recall hearing my heart beating in my ears. If having a turkey outsmart you makes you instantly and hopelessly cynical, there’s likewise no better route to pure joy than sealing the deal on that same bird. Even though it had all happened so fast, and just minutes before, we relived the hunt (as hunters are apt to do) and we took dozens of photos. I notched my tag, and we made for the truck. I could hardly feel the weight of the bird I was in such high spirits.

He was not a typical bird, and at first I thought he was a jake. He barely had spurs at all (only 1/8 of an inch on each leg) and his beard was just a 3-inch stub, but he had a full, even tail fan with the tawny, pale signature feathers of a Merriam’s gobbler. On closer inspection, the beard was rotted and frayed at the end, and my suspicion was that it had frozen or otherwise been broken off (a sentiment echoed by all my turkey hunting brethren when they saw it). But I wasn’t on that trip to shoot a monster longbeard, or a sharp-spurred limbhanger. I was there to take on a Merriam’s gobbler on his own turf, and with the help of my friend, I had succeeded. I pride myself on being eloquent and articulate, but in those moments (and to be fair even still, a whole month later) I didn’t have adequate words to describe the feelings. I was exhausted, elated, and on the brink of crying tears of joy. This was a bird I’d wanted to hunt for a long time, and the only other subspecies of wild turkey other than Eastern that lives in the cavernous expanse of wilderness that makes up Canada. I could say now that I’d achieved a turkey hunting goal, and that Chris and I had done it with our hodgepodge mix of local savvy, woodsmanship, and turkey hunting experience respectively.

The only shotgun I’ve ever owned, with the only Merriam’s I’ve ever shot

We’d persistently hunted some pretty tough country, and we’d made good decisions (especially that morning) that ultimately brought the game to hand. I was proud of myself, but I was really happy for Chris. He had never hunted turkeys before, and I hoped that I had made a convert of him. The bird, for his part, certainly provided a compelling case for the excitement and rollercoaster of emotions that a successful turkey hunt can bring. We honored his sacrifice by eating him a mere seven hours later.

Sweet Relief

In the back of my mind, I knew I’d have to get back to work eventually, and I knew that my wife and kids would be happy to see me. I also knew that I still had at least three more weeks of turkey hunting to do in Ontario. But as we sat in the sun in Chris’s front yard, cold cider in hand, and our bellies full of wild rice, wild turkey, and carrots I could not help but feel completely at peace with the world. The stresses of work were several provinces away, the afterglow of a successful hunt surrounded us, and we were in arguably the most beautiful countryside in the nation. We talked about Chris making the next year’s trip to Ontario for an Eastern turkey hunt, and I can say that it sounded like a pretty damn good idea.

There was nothing that could break the good vibes that afternoon.