Jinx Broken

Today I killed a Jake. Today I finally broke my three year spring turkey jinx by low-crawling to within twelve yards of a pre-pubescent Meleagris gallopavo, killing him cleanly with one well placed shot of number four Hevi-Shot. Small spurs, three inch beard, but, what a hunt!

This hunt started like most others here; four AM wake-up, walking to pre-planned positions by 4:30, in position and settled in before 5:00, and then the beautiful pre-dawn wait. Few things one experiences repeatedly are as exhilarating as a turkey’s roost gobble. I can only think of one or two, and those don’t usually happen in the morning, especially not before 9:00 AM, at least not for me.

This morning George Havelin and I made for the public New York State Wildlife Management Area adjacent to my farm. We observed birds headed that way last night, one of which had an eight plus inch beard. We stole quietly in to the big sycamores on a knoll by the creek long before shooting light, and sat until we heard the boys gobble from the roost. When they finally sounded off, things were looking good. We had two birds gobbling, neither more than 100 yards from us. Then, a hen intervened and sang her siren songs of love, sucking those boys right down out of the trees and off in the opposite direction. We tried without success to lure them back, but, knowing the habit of these birds, we retreated to the road and attempted to circle around to the Southeast corner of my front field, where we knew they would end up eventually.

Moments after our arrival in “the front corner”(20 minutes after leaving the sycamores), we heard a gobble about 100 yards away, still in the thicker state land woods, but headed in our direction. Moving out of my hedgerow and South into the state land, George ducked under a huge fallen willow, and I took a forward position, hastily setting up in a thick stand of quaking aspens (I don’t know how they got there). Three minutes passed and we heard the turkeys answer George’s sweet calling, but they were now to my right, heading North, having opted to make straight for my open field and not detouring in our direction as we had hoped. I waited just a few moments and retreated back to George’s willow for a quick conference.

We figured the gobblers, two of them, were trouping straight to a strutting ground beneath a big wolf oak tree in my hedgerow, roughly 80 yards from our position, but concealed by brush and tall grass. We decided I would re-position the decoy in a grassy opening between George and my hedgerow, and that I would conceal myself as best I could in a multi-flora rose bush just beyond the decoy. All the while, the two gobblers were sounding off urgently, seemingly getting closer, still on the opposite side of the hedge row from us.

As I got into position, one of the gobblers thundered his call less than 30 yards from me, still, on the other side of the hedgerow. I saw just a bit of motion and his bright red head. I could also see the second male’s tail, fanned out, but could not see his body. I now felt quite exposed in my rose bush, so I dropped to a prone position and quickly assessed my situation. Those birds were headed right for the corner, and if I could low-crawl quickly and stealthily enough, I could be in position to ambush them in two minutes or less. Otherwise, from where I was currently set up, I would have limited shot potential, and marginal concealment. I decided to go for it.

Fortunately, the grass was tall enough to cover my movement pretty well. I got to about 15 yards from my field and froze when I heard both birds gobbling repeatedly. I heard George, now about 50 yards behind me, turn up the heat on his come-hither calling. I was pressed to the ground, gun up and ready in a very flat prone position and knew I could go no further. I was in a nice opening in the hedgerow and the birds were literally marching my way. I kept seeing the fanned tails of these birds, and glimpses of red, blue, and white heads through the grass to my left. They looked like sails on the ocean, coming to my shores. But, I could not make out a beard and I dared not raise up to have a look. I decided then that the first red head that came into my field of fire and gobbled was going to take a hard hit.

For a moment I became very self aware. My breathing was pretty good, I noticed, but “man, I am totally pumped” I thought, “Huh, I am having a blast right now.” This was somehow notable to me. I heard the spitting, wheezing sound of the first male strutting and was amazed at how close I finally was to a spring turkey. And then I saw the beet red head appear before me. He never saw me. Didn’t sense the bit of algebra and geometry that calculated his death, the firepower decision-making, left barrel or right. Never saw that very slight adjustment I made, a sniper, a snake in the grass, striking violently. Never saw what hit him.

After the shot I kept the bead on him, just in case he had more life in him. Later, I found out that George thought I missed because I didn’t move a muscle after the shot. I watched the bird do his brief acrobatics, and settle. I rolled over slightly, looking back at George with a victorious fist raised in the air. Jinx broken.