It’s one of the most popular hunting seasons in the nation.
And most outdoorsmen agree that real turkey hunters fall into a special class.
The reason is simple: the sport is so exacting that few ever qualify for the master turkey-hunter status.
Anyone, if he wanders the wild turkeys’ territory long enough, sooner or later may luck upon this magnificent bird.
The wild turkey bears little similarity to the domesticated fowl.
The wild variety roosts in trees. Unless disturbed, they usually keep to the same territory for as much as a couple of weeks if the mast is sufficient.
At this time of year, they like fresh greens and insects.
About dawn, dropping down to strut about on the forest floor, the male bird is somewhat preoccupied, gathering and guarding his harem.
Big feet scratching away at the forest duff—it’s not hard to locate active grounds.
The trick is to anticipate their movements, slip in silently and let them come to you.
At least, that is the idea.
A wild turkey exercises uncanny vision and excellent hearing. He is wary and on guard.
The ability to approach a flock of feeding wild turkeys undetected is worthy of the most skilled Indian stealth.
For modern man, the answer to any possibility of a successfulspring turkey hunt is by using artful calling techniques. Bagging a wary gobbler hunt comes down to patience and persistence, knowing how to use your squawk box,intermittently but not too often or too brazenly.
I have tried to photograph wild turkeys over the years andfound out in a hurry that the practice is no picnic.
Still, the difficulty of the assignment has not eroded my enthusiasm.
I spent the better part of an afternoon several years ago trying to photograph a wily old tom who kept calling from the timbers near a stream I’d been fishing.
I had experienced a disappointing encounter with a trout thathad escaped into the channel after some youngsters appeared on the scene.
It was only when the distant sounds of a gobbling turkey echoed through the open forest that I was reminded of a higher calling.
How soon my angling sorrows departed as I contemplated the lone-wandering bird, lone-wandering but not lost.
I recounted many youthful hunts with friends and former students, hunts that weren’t particularly productive from a harvest perspective, but were bountiful from the standpoint of providing a lifetime of memories.
At that instant, the gobbler seemed to personify everything wonderful in the world.
I remember scuttling the rod and reel in favor of my old NikonF camera and 80-200 zoom lens.
As I climbed the steep, rhododendron-laden slope in front of the murmuring stream, I advanced the film lever stealthily as any camo-clad warrior might load his weapon.
I eased my way under the budding forest canopy as if I were completely camouflaged and wearing face paint. I even flirted with the image that I was some ancient Cherokee huntsman armed with bow and flint.
I found my way to an opening in the trees that now, nearing sunset, were dulled to dusky forest colors. A silhouette-breaking tree to lean against, some low bushes and wispy foreground gave me confidence.
Time dragged on: distant hooting of owls, the low rumble offaraway jets burning through the heavens.
I lifted the heavy lens as quietly as possible and turned the f-stop ring wide open to allow in more of the dying light.
A woodpecker drummed his thudding percussion amid a procession of pines.
Suddenly a scuffling of brush; a mourning dove mourned; more brushy sounds, then movement.
Scarcely breathing, all senses at high alert, I watched and waited—and waited.
Knee cramping, bug crawling around inside my left ear, I remained frozen, tense, camera at the ready.
Nothing.
Somewhere, far off, a faint cluck echoed, or was it just the wind?
By then I could see the fast-fading sun avoiding me. Blood-thirsty gnats and snarling mosquitoes made for a free meal on my ear lobes.
The hunt was over.
I had nothing to print from the Kodachrome cannister in mybanged-up Nikon.
But I had a vision of a long-bearded gobbler etched in my brain.
For the rest of the evening, I enjoyed the thrill of that vision.
I could accept some of the blame for not catching a glimpse of the elusive fowl.
Maybe he saw me coming and simply faded away.
Maybe he was never there to begin with—only a ghost or spirit of the perennial forest.
Or maybe he just answered a different higher calling! Â
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Top of the morning!