Yesterday was opening day of spring turkey season here in Kansas. It seems as if I have been waiting for that day for months. Turkey hunting is one of the most trying and rewarding kinds of hunting there are. You don’t think that a big bird with a brain the size of a walnut (and fewer brain cells than a cockroach) would be too hard to hunt, but they are quite a challenge. Mainly because they are very wary of everything. If they see something that looks “unusual” they will stop and turn around. If they see a body move at 500 yards away, the take off running like the world is ending. The trick is to outsmart them, which sounds silly knowing that they are almost brainless. When you sneak in the timber in the dark hours of early morn and set up on a tree with a decoy or two out, and you begin to hear a few yelps followed by a gobble, you know that you are in the right place. When they fly down from the trees and you see the big toms strutting and the hens running around, it is a glorious day. When they walk away and you don’t see them again that day, you have still had a great day of hunting. There aren’t too many birds around that can challenge the beauty of a strutting tom. The colors are iridescent, his head changes from red to blue to white, his tail fans out, he puffs up to three times his size, and it is beautiful. Watching the birds strut and run around is 66% of the fun of hunting. The other 33% is the rush of having the birds in range and looking at them down the end of the barrel, knowing that they are yours. Even when you don’t shoot, they are yours, because you know that you can drop them at anytime.
In Kansas all you can bag is two bearded turkeys in the spring. My associate, Brian, went out yesterday and today, no birds down, but he has seen them each day, so not a total loss. I went out yesterday and had some come in, watched them for a while, and then realized there were a couple toms strutting away. As I was watching them, it looked as if they were getting ready to move farther away, so I decided I should probably drop one of them. So I did. He had a nice 10 inch beard. It was a two year old, judging by the spurs. This guy weighed only about 15 pounds; I was amazed at how light he was. Nevertheless, I got one, and he looked good. This morning I decided to go out to the same place, just 50 yards down the fence line. They yelped and gobbled for about 45 minutes and then flew down extra early. About 30 minutes later they poked their heads out on the other side of a brush pile about 100 yards out. There were about 5 hens. They stopped at the fence line, about 60 yards from me. I didn’t think they were going to cross, but then the tom came, strutting away. He came up to the fence and then the hens went under, followed by him. The hens starting walking away from me, soon to be out of range. The tom followed. I was a little nervous. “Will this work?” I thought to myself. But then he stopped and walked the other direction, out in the open for about 5 seconds. I decided now or never, and boom! There he was flopping, 50 yards out, not too far for a 3 ½ Remington Premier Hevi-Shot #5. This one was from the same batch, 9 ½ inch beard, 2 year old, but he weighed in at a nice 21 pounds. So I have my birds. I will leave the gun home and bring out the cameras and go with Brian to video his hunts. That sounds like fun, because after all, two-thirds of the fun of hunting is watching them.
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