More turkeys by numbers

Recently back from our annual spring turkey hunt and family visit to the farmstead in CT, Richie Feller's post inspires me to file a report. After about 12 hours on the road, Angela, the boys, the dogs and I pulled into my folks' yard in NW CT about 1 a.m. on May 8, the 2nd day of the CT spring turkey season. Wife and I got a couple hours sleep before getting up and out to the woods in search of gobblers. Ange had an uneventful, rainy morning, but I had some activity right off, with a tom and a jake gobbling from the roost probably a few hundred yards away from the south boundary of my little brother's woodlot. I gave a few sleepy roost yelps, then waited about 15 minutes (until after the birds were on the ground) before continuing with yelps, clucks and purrs from slate and mouth calls. No hunters on the state land competed with me this year, and pretty soon two toms came into view up the ridge of mature oak. The lead bird did most of the gobbling and all of the strutting. I was able to get the gun up when they passed behind some large trees, and took the lead bird at about 15 yards. He was the biggest tom I'd killed, weighing in at 21 lbs (9 in beard, 1+ in spurs). I was able to get out a couple more hours that morning, walking and calling and trying to keep the calls dry, but I only got answers from a couple hens.

The next morning I went back to the same spot to start the day. The rain was pretty steady from sunrise on. No gobblers were talking in the woods (but many wood and hermit thrushes, various warblers, and a pant load of red-bellied woodpeckers); a check of the fields turned up nothing, so I returned to the house to get the kids' breakfast and have pot of coffee. I went out again late morning, this time on my folks' farm, and spotted a group of toms about 3 tenths of a mile away across the valley on the neighbors side-hill field. Even though the wind was in my face, I decided to hammer at them on the box call. I checked for a reaction from them through my binocs, but not surprisingly they didn't seem to notice. After about the 4th salvo of yelps, a gobbler answered from the valley below, about 1000 feet away; I could see another tom down there as well, on the neighboring farm property. Twenty minutes of trying to call these birds across the swamp and up through a nearly impenetrable overgrown multiflora rose-choked pasture didn't seem to be working, so I picked my way down into the soggy tangle to meet them most of the way. I got to within about 70 yards of the birds and stopped in the most open area I could find. There was no place to sit where you could see any distance at all, so I stood next to a tree. The toms gobbled from the neighbor's land, and a hen in my folks' overgrown thorny pasture swamp, between the toms and me, began calling. I laid my gun down to extricate myself from a rose bush, and gave some aggressive clucks and purrs followed by a jake gobble, which elicited some excited gobbles. I repeated the call combo, which again was answered, then I just kept my eyes open. After a few minutes I took a step to get a better view, and saw a tom in an opening 25 yards away about the same time he saw me. As quickly and smoothly as I could I reached for my shotgun on the ground, shouldered it an fired a shot to his head as he was beating a retreat into the puckerbrush. This bird was a copy of the one from the previous day, only a pound and a quarter heavier. I shouldered the tom and headed back up to the barn. Nearly to the barn, I noticed 3 toms in an old apple orchard 80 yards away watching me pass. I didn't break stride and continued on out of their sight, then ditched the dead gobbler and snuck around out of turkey view to an area the birds seemed to be headed. After 15 minutes the gobblers entered the field I'd hoped they'd been heading for. The topography allowed me to sneak fairly close. After getting their attention and drawing them a little closer using purrs and clucks, I stood up and shot the nearest tom. He turned out to be the smallest, weighing 17 pounds, but sporting one 11-inch and one 5-inch beard. That used up all my tags -- 3 toms totalling 60 lbs. The third day Angela killed 2 jakes, giving us a trip total of 90 lbs of turkey yielding about 50 lbs of meat. This certainly more than makes up for the grouse and ducks that are not stacked up in our freezer this year. The kids like their turkey meat, but I think Collin (the yearling) may like playing with his turkey leg toy at least as much. Dead animal parts make some of the best toys.

Collin the hog whisperer, gobbler leg in hand.