Off the Roost, Spitting and Drumming

elnor

By elnor
in Turkey Hunting

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elnor 8-Pointer

elnor

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My Eastern from the story below is my entry in this year's Realtree Turkey Contest for Team Primeros (Team #1):

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* Killed 6 April 2008 6:49AM in southeastern Oklahoma

* 9 1/2 inch beard

* 3/4 inch right spur, 3/4 inch left spur

* 17 pounds

* NWTF score: 51

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20080406_2103.spitNDrum.jpg

Read the full story below.

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Opening morning, 6:30AM, and I had found the origin of the morning's first gobbling, a longbeard roosted alone in the biggest tree near a small pond we call the Spring Pond. I made a soft yelp and he spun around on his branch to locate the source of the yelp. He staired a hole through me and the early morning dimness. He glided down in my direction, out of sight behind some screening cedars and brush, and a few minutes later I heard spitting and drumming from very close behind the brush...

But I'm ahead of myself. I arrived at our family farm in southeastern Oklahoma two days early to do a little scouting and fishing before the season opened on Sunday. Friday evening while out on a walk I observed a large, lone gobbler make his way from the north side of a large field on our property across to the south side. He passed east of the Spring Pond and out of sight into the trees about fly-up time, so I expected he'd be in the area again in the morning. Saturday morning I was up at 6AM and out on the land early enough to hear the first gobbling start about 6:40. I counted at least four different gobblers sounding off, including one in the creek bottom west of the field, one that sounded like he was roosted on an adjacent hill just west of the Spring Pond, and two that appeared to be roosted further east of the Spring Pond along a low limestone ridge. A few minutes later I saw a large gobbler in the field trailing a feeding hen; about an hour after that, I found a very large group of hens and gobblers, at least five longbeards, in the large meadow on

the property east of our field.

Things were shaping up very nicely for opening day tomorrow. I took the rest of Saturday to visit with my parents and take my wife and daughter fishing. It was my three year old daughter's first time fishing. With her grandpa's help (he cast, she reeled) she caught at least fourteen or fifteen perch, and we kept enough perch plus a bass my wife reeled in to have a wonderful fish fry the next day for Sunday lunch. As we ended the day with an "eat out" (my daughter's name for cooking hotdogs and smores over a fire), I gazed up Orion the Hunter in the moonless sky and hoped for a good opener the next morning.

I was up at 5:15AM Sunday April 6th. After a quick breakfast and hike back to the Spring Pond area, I planned to go all the way to the eastern property line fence and wait for the first gobbling to refine my setup. Before I'd made it that far, however, I heard gobbling coming from somewhere near the Spring Pond. Original plan adjusted for a closer, "hot" tom, I made a beeline for the several acres of trees just north of the pond.

As I arrived at the eastern end of the trees, scanning the now dimly silhoutted tree branches of the tall trees on the other side of the pond, I suddenly made out a turkey shape. It appeared to be the only turkey in that or the surrounding trees. When it sounded off again, I knew it was the bird that had been issuing forth since the first gobble a few minutes earlier.

I quickly picked a tree with screening vegetation on the pond-side (my right, which was facing south). I used the large tree I would sit at as cover and walked straight away from the bird and tree, just into the edge of the large field. I staked a blow-up hen decoy that I'd quickly inflated upon finding the bird. I already had a diaphragm in my mouth (I always keep a mouth call at the ready while hunting), so after picking the tree and placing the decoy I quickly sat and quietly adjusted my position. I turned so I'd be able to pan with him from right to left as he approached my deke, then studied him through the opening in the screening cover. When I made the soft yelps with my box call, he whirled to face my direction. I could feel him studying the dark terrain. His senses must have been blazing just like mine in that instant. After a few seconds that seemed like an eternity, he leaned forward and dropped off his roost, gliding down towards my direction. He landed out of sight on the far side of the low cedars and brush, but I knew he was close and hoped he'd soon appear.

It took him a couple of minutes, but I detected his movement and sound at the same time. He emerged from the screening cover in full strut, spitting and drumming as he came. His wing tips dragged on the ground. He was all the majesty and mystery that the wild turkey, and he was close. His beard protruded and hung down towards the ground. His head seemed to glisten pure white and shine enflamed red in every direction. I considered how long to watch and wait; I'd never before had a strutter close enough, in such low wind conditions, to hear his spitting and drumming like this.

It was an experience that cannot be properly described, one of those few fleeting moments when we are every bit ALIVE and in the NOW.

It was perfect.

Then I remembered that I had no camera rolling and that this gobbler wouldn't care even if I did. I let him go through one more spit-and-drum cycle, then putted on my mouth call. He paused and raised his head, I shot, and he fell at seventeen steps. The bird I dubbed "SpitNDrum" was going to walk back to the farm house on my shoulder. It was 6:49AM on opening day and what a season I'd already had!

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