Scoring a coveted controlled turkey hunt permit at Madison County WMA the same weekend as the Wal-Mart FLW bass tournament at Beaver Lake was serendipitous.
For such good fortune to coincide with awful weather was accursed.
I camped at the WMA for the duration of the tournament and hunted until about 2:30 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, when the weigh-ins were at 4 p.m. I washed my hair and took sponge baths at the truck after each hunt and made the short drive to Rogers on Arkansas 12, which took about 40 minutes.
While I set up camp Friday, a fellow warned me about the madhouse I would encounter opening morning. Hunters would swarm the WMA on opening morning, he said, and most of them would sit on the roadsides listening for gobbles. If I worked a gobbler, I'd better close the deal quickly because somebody would cut in on me and intercept the bird or scare it away.
It wasn't that way at all.
Four other hunters shared my campsite Friday night, but they said they were hunting adjacent to private property. One of them killed a bird, and they decamped before noon. They tied a breast feather to my tent rigging while I was gone, and I left it there for good luck.
A storm front moved in Friday night, bringing a hard, relentless wind that gusted to 30-40 mph. It continued unabated until early Monday morning.
I had all my favorite spots to myself, including one that requires a long trek across mostly loose rock. I had to walk slowly to avoid turning an ankle. I placed two decoys on a narrow, open bench about 200 nearly vertical yards down a hill crest. I set my stealth chair next to a fallen tree inside a tangle of branches. I had a clear, 160-degree field of view, but in my gillie pullover, I thought myself invisible.
At 10:30 a.m., a mature gobbler strolled into the open about 150 yards up the hill. He gazed at my setup, but I could not call him down.
An hour later, a hen walked up the draw behind me. I was surprised at how noisily she walked. I flushed her off a nest when I departed. We were frequent companions for the rest of the hunt.
The next morning I sat within a bristle of small pines near the spot where I saw the gobbler. Visibility was good to the sides, but thick branches created a big blind spot in front. The nesting hen entered the bench way down below for breakfast and then vanished into the woods.
About 10 a.m., I called up two jakes to within 25 yards. Their red wattles shimmered in the sunlight, but they were small, and their beards barely formed stubs. They clucked at the decoys before walking around them and descending into a deep hollow.
The FLW staff members, all avid hunters, were very interested in my mornings.
"When those jakes came up, I said, 'Where's your daddy?' " I said.
One of the guys laughed and told me about his friend that shot a video of some jakes during a recent hunt.
"He says, 'Who's your daddy?' And they all gobbled!" the guy said. "He did it several times. It was hilarious!"
I woke to cold rain Monday, the final day of the hunt. I intended to leave, but it broke to a light drizzle about the time I reached my parking spot.
Thinking the third time might be the charm, I gathered my gear for one last walk across the ridge. I set up at the same latitude, but I moved to the base of two giant trees that gave me a full view of the most likely approaches.
Shortly after, a bird entered the clearing below. I called, and it came right to me.
It didn't take long to realize it was the nesting hen.
As she approached one decoy, she fluffed up her feathers aggressively. She purred and acted as if she might attack the decoy. Instead, she hopped to one side and shook water all over it.
Though I was exposed in front, her relaxed demeanor told me she couldn't distinguish my outline against those big trees to my back. A mask covered most of my face, and my persimmon colored Oakley shades covered my eyes. She spent a long while pecking around about 10 yards away, and then she meandered around the side of the hill and disappeared.
That's a lot of action to have not killed a bird.
I call it a blessing.
Sports on 04/21/2016