Arkansas Sportsman

Gobbler uses obscure rule to spoil opening-day hunt

Turkey Hunting Canon No. 721: Wild turkeys prefer the path of most resistance if it improves their chance of spoiling a hunt.

I primarily hunt in the piney woods of the Gulf Coastal Plain, an unconventional turkey habitat by any definition. Piney woods are hard to hunt because they are so extreme. Most parcels are patchworks of large pines, young pines, cutovers and thin hardwood strips.

Among the mature pines, sight lines are often long and fairly open between the rows. They are hard to hunt because a turkey will probably see you before you see it.

Cutovers are woolly with tall grass, pine saplings and log litter. They are full of food, so wild turkeys love to visit cutovers in the middle of the day. Cutovers are hard to hunt because basically there are no sight lines. If you call up a gobbler in a cutover, he'll likely be upon you before you have time to react.

Stands of young pines are the hardest to hunt. The trees are small and close. Vines and briers lace the open air like giant spiderwebs. I once thought turkeys avoided these wildlife abysses, but a gobbler taught me differently Saturday.

This leads me to Turkey Hunting Lesson No. 722.

Don't move. Stay put until the end of legal shooting time on the last day of the season.

In turkey hunting videos, the classic image of piney woods hunting shows a gobblers strutting in a road. Those videos must have been shot in Georgia or the Carolinas because I never see turkeys in woodland roads in the piney woods where I hunt.

Since I love that image, though, I set up in a spot where a woodland road separates a big stand of young pines and a big stand of mature pines. I started the previous three seasons in a hardwood strip between pine stands. I worked gobblers there on opening day in 2012 and 2013, but they abandoned me to go uphill to the convergence of the woodland road and the two pine stands.

There I found what I believed was their strutting area. I set up in a spot a few feet off the road that gave me excellent views in both directions down the road and far into the mature pines. My back was to the young pine thicket because I didn't believe a bird would approach through them.

The birds changed their routine this year. I heard distant gobblers, but this was no longer their primary destination. I worked one bird for a long while that approached through the mature pines, but one of two things must have happened. Either a hen intercepted him, or he invoked Turkey Hunting Canon No. 721.

That very vocal bird went inexplicably silent sometime around 7:30 a.m. Comfortable in my turkey hunting chair and covered in my ghillie poncho, I scanned the woods for movement or for a splash of red and white that denotes a gobbler's head. Meanwhile, I blew soft yelps, purrs and clucks with my mouth call and answered them in kind with a box call and slate call.

The sun came out about 8:30 a.m. The wind picked up a little, and it got uncomfortably warm and muggy. At about 9 a.m. I sensed that the morning hunt was done.

I clicked off the two ThermaCells at my sides. Only then did I appreciate how well they work. As soon as they were off, mosquitoes swarmed me.

I stood and raised my arms to remove the poncho. A panic cackle erupted from the deep tangle behind me. I was the deep, raspy voice of a gobbler that couldn't have been more than 25 or 30 yards away. I plunged to the ground, but the damage was done. The morning hunt truly was done.

I bade farewell to that bird with an insult that starts with "A." With respect and admiration, of course.

Sports on 04/19/2015

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