Houdini & the 2 Jr's.

[Rhino]

Houdini is an old devil bird I found during the preseason. He appears to have no love for a particular roost site.

Round 1: Friday morning I found Houdini sounding off on the limb about ¼ mile from where I’d last heard him. He has a particularly loud, coarse gobble. After setting up on the same ridge with him Houdini decided to fly down to the bottom west of me. My calls just didn’t seem to matter. His mind was set on what he wanted to do. Then he crossed a creek and headed northwest. Time to swing around to the southwest with a flanking maneuver. Before I could get around on him Houdini had changed course heading due south. I had to literally hit the dirt face down as he passed through out of sight. His gobbles gave away his pace and he was moving about as fast as I could trot. He was heading into a small area of big timber along a creek we call Cutoff Creek near where it dumps into a large creek called James Creek. James Creek is our boundary line. Now I swung around the north side to try to move through some select cut timber to get around to his east side. Dang…he beat me to where I wanted to be. I crawled into a position just north of him on a shelf that was only about 7’ or 8’ above the open creek bottom. From then on until 10:15 we did battle. He would gobble and drum his way back and forth along the creek answering me and just doing his thing but wouldn’t come up that gentle slope to the top of the shelf. Like I told Al (Dman) Saturday, I went through every call I carried that morning, including my gobble call. Occasionally I could hear the 2 Jr. birds gobbling off in the distance on the other side of James Creek. Finally he did what no turkey is supposed to do. He crossed James Creek, which is bigger than some rivers I’ve seen in the Midwest. Round 1 goes to Houdini.

Round 2: Saturday morning I went straight to Houdini’s strutting zone in that creek bottom before daylight to be in position for Houdini’s arrival. As dawn broke, an owl sounded off which Houdini quickly answered. Dang…he’s roosted right over James Creek this time. A minute or 2 later he cranks up on his own joined by 2 Jr’s. A few minutes later he gobbles on the ground in James Creek. Good grief is still way to dark for that. He had apparently flown down to a sand bar joined by his 2 buddies. Then the woods opened up with hen talk 360 degrees around me. Some serious trash talk too. I chimed right in. Some 10 minutes or so goes by before hens start pitching down to the gobblers, across the creek and down in the bottom around me. Before the hunt was over I would see 17 hens. Now Houdini cranks up his load drumming. The 2 Jr’s gobble on the other side of James Creek heading away. With that loud drumming I was convinced Houdini had to be either on the sand bar on in the bottom with me. As I’m watching hens move around in the bottom some 100 yards or so away I hear Houdini crank up his gobble across James Creek. Dang! With hens in view I wait. Finally 5 hens come feeding their way along through the bottom heading east. They are followed by…nothing. One hen returns back west and gives the tell tale cutting sound of crossing the creek to join Houdini and the 2 Jr’s. Dang! It’s now 9:00 so I ease over to where she crossed to get some feel for why they are crossing there and ponder my options. As I’m standing there the 2 Jr’s gobble some 200 yards or more on the other side of the creek. Well not much of an option here so I walk away. I get about 50 yards from James Creek and decide to give them some parting trash talk. A hen answers with a loud cut while flying across the creek. I hit the nearest tree. She passes by the south side just inside the 30 yard line. After she’s gone I throw out another cut. Another hen fly’s across the creek toward me and takes the same route of the 1st hen. The 2 Jr’s gobble at the sound of her cutting. Through a gap in the trees I see 2 black bodied turkeys moving toward the creek. The gobblers are coming! I aim in the southwest where the 2 hens had passed through. The woods go quiet. Suddenly one of the Jr’s steps out from behind a big tree northwest of me at around the 10 yard line. I don’t know how he just materialized there. He sees that strange lump on the tree and turns to make his retreat. OK when he’s behind the tree I’ll move to shoot him went he comes out the other side. He must have caught some movement from my shotgun barrel because when he appeared he was in full gallop. At 15 yards I send a Nitro load that appeared to pass behind him. Nice shot Al. I send out a 2nd load that takes the bark off a tree. Nice 2nd shot Al. Now I only put 2 loads at a time in my shotgun so I won’t be throw a salute to a parting turkey. With an empty shotgun the 2nd Jr. makes a mad dash south from behind another tree along with 3 hens. They bust into the air at the creek bank heading south and swing back west. Oh well…isn’t by far my first miss and certainly won’t be my last. Good thing about shooting tight turkey chokes is close range misses usually means clean misses. I’m sure I didn’t hit a feather but just in case I checked to make sure before I threw in the towel for round 2.

Round 3 to come soon.

Edited March 23, 2009 by Rhino

[rhine16]

Sounds like Houdini has the upper hand so far.... I doubt he'll make it too much longer with you hot on his tail though

Good luck getting him!

[BAMABUCKS]

Win, lose, or draw, isn't it great just to be in the game. Man I love this sport.

[3seasons]

Hate it for ya Al, been there done that. Great story though. Give him a few days and go back after him, then show us his pic.

[Guest TennesseeTurkey]

Man thats a great set of stories there Rhino

[Rhino]

Win, lose, or draw, isn't it great just to be in the game. Man I love this sport.

You got that right! So far I've gotten 2 trophy hunts out of him. Looking forward to the next encounter.

[redkneck]

Great story Al!!! Bird crossing the creek?!?!? Say it aint so. I had a rough time yesterday morning trying to get to a bird that was on a road that winds for hundreds of yards and crosses two huge ditches (about ten feet deep). The second bridge is where i thought the bird was, or just beyond it. He hadnt gobbled in about 15 minutes, and i knew if i didnt get close to that bridge, i may never get him to cross that ditch, but I also ran the risk of him spotting us. I went ahead, the bird never gobbled again, but i've seen turkeys get hung up on a ditch no more than 1 foot wide, and hunting around water adds a lot of complexity to your game. Keep at him, i'm sure you'll have another oppurtunity to waste some ammo, heheheee.....

[Rhino]

I've had that same problem with water, ditches and creeks before too redkneck. For whatever reason they didn't mind crossing this one too much at that particular spot...at least on that particular day anyway.

Next time I'm in there (will be soon) I'll take some pictures to show you where they crossed. Hopefully I'll get to burn some more powder too. You'll be scratching your head wondering why they would cross that creek just like I was.

[GWSmith]

You got that right! So far I've gotten 2 trophy hunts out of him. Looking forward to the next encounter.

One of these days our going to have to kill that bird before he makes you a really good author:D

[Rhino]

Now that the monsoon has cleared out the time has come for Round 3. Hopefully, the 3rd time's a charm.

Packing up to head to camp for 3 days in the turkey woods. I should be sitting in Houdini's strutting area at dawn tomorrow. I sure hope the recent storms hasn't cut off my access to get there. I'll put the chainsaw in the back of my cart just in case.

BTW...hopefully I'll have some new gobbler pics on the trail cams to share with you too.

See ya'll Tuesday.

Edited March 27, 2009 by Rhino

[GWSmith]

Good luck...Pop that Feather Duster;)

[layin on the smackdown]

Sounds like an exciting few days!!! I guess thats why you call him Houdini...he sounds like he is one of two things...

1.) extremely smart (professor status)

Or

2.) Extremely Bi-polar

good luck getting him!

[Jorden]

Very cool stories:cool:

[Curdog]

Sounds like you need to kill him. You dont want him passing his genes to offspring!

[Rhino]

Well Round 3 & 4 go to Houdini. Oh well.

Sat. morning he was roosted about 1/4 mile south of where he was last time. Way too far to do much good on the wrong side of the property line but I hung in there for 2 1/2 hours trying anyway. He gobbled on the roost about 40 times. After flydown time the wind started howling so if he gobbled on the ground I sure couldn't hear him.

Sun. morning I decided to first try another place with the wind still blowing pretty hard. One bird gobbled near there but only once on the roost. I made it back to Houdini's domain about 8:00. He accomodated me by gobbling once near the creek. After an hour of hearing nothing I threw in the towel.

Here's a picture of the creek the birds were crossing. Although the picture doesn't show it well, the bottom of the creek is about 15' below the bank. The sand bar you see is where the 3 gobblers flew down on Round 2.

Now that the 3 of us that hunt our place switch zones Houdini will be out there waiting to play disappearing acts for them.

I'll be going after some different birds for the next 1/3 of our turkey season. The area I'll be hunting now appears to have more birds in it this year than the other 2 areas. This coming weekend will be devoted to taking a youth hunter out so I won't carry a weapon in the woods until he slings a bird or the weekend is over, whichever happens 1st.