The gobbler that could not be called

By By Otha Barham / outdoors editor
May 14, 2004
To normal people, it probably appears that turkey hunters go into the woods in springtime, call to male turkeys with callers that imitate amorous female turkeys and shoot the eager toms as they strut into gun range. Sometimes that is what happens. But the gap between plan and reality here is most often quite wide. Most turkey hunts don't result in a dead turkey. And most successful hunts fall into a middle ground that includes facing many a pitfall.
On the far end of this spectrum of encounters with spring gobblers lie the experiences that we cherish the most. They are the battles we do with gobblers that elude us time after time, month upon month and year after year. We call these birds "bad turkeys." But they are the ones we live to challenge; the substance of advanced turkey hunting.
An example comes from Jerry Turner of Needham, Alabama who battled a bad turkey he named The Swan Bluff Gobbler. You always name your bad turkeys usually a respectable name; not one of the uncomplimentary names you call him during your perpetual defeats.
A friend gave Jerry this old gobbler. Hunters who have reached their wits end with a bird often "give" the bird to a hunter they either think will enjoy the challenge or who they want to keep occupied and away from their current hot spots.
The bird had not gobbled recently when Jerry entered his woods and surprised the old boy with a wing bone caller. The gobbler answered at about 4:30 p.m. Jerry backed out in favor of challenging the turkey the following morning.
Turner's morning calls were fruitless after he had flushed the bird's hens off their roost. Then he used the wing bone again and got a response. The gobbler flew down and was coming straight in when a limb fell from a tree and spooked the tom at the last minute.
Lucky gobbler
Turner used a trick that we who hunt the bad ones use. He scratched out trails through the leaves where he could walk in the pre-dawn toward the tom's roost without shuffling leaves. Nothing worked.
Eventually it got to the point that if you yelped to the old gobbler, he would not even answer. The bird would even intercept and whip any gobbler that was responding to Turner's calls. "I couldn't kill him and I couldnt even kill another gobbler in the area," noted Turner.
Turner theorized that the bird flew from the pasture each day instead of walking the hill as other birds would. And subsequent observations proved his theory. The cunning bird would fly past his roosting spot to a high tree on a bluff where he would sit and watch for danger. Then he would fly back to the spot where he landed near Turner and then walk to the next ridge where he would roost.
Jerry set up in the hollow below his roost, completely hidden in heavy brush. He heard the turkey light in the tree, fly to his landing spot and come walking his way. When he came into view at 100 yards, he stretched his neck up, putted and turned and ran! "I had not moved and there is no way that turkey should have seen me," said Jerry.
Foiled again
Another long, sad trip to the house. A mile walk out of the woods. But the next day would be different.
Deciding that there was a chance the gobbler hadn't heard the hen spook, Turner sat back down with little hope. Soon he heard the great bird walking up the hill. He readied his shotgun. The Swan Bluff Gobbler marched into view at point blank range and fell into the leaves at Turner's shot.
Jerry didn't move for a minute. He said, "Well, it's all over buddy. You and I have chased each other around these woods for a long time."
Some hunters will see Jerry's exploiting the bird's unusual roosting maneuver as skilled insight. Others will cry "ambush." Perhaps one should wait to criticize until working a bird three years that eventually cannot be called, and that consumes far too much of one's brain time. One could get close enough to frustration overload to consider any means of regaining one's sanity.
So speak carefully about a turkey hunter's gobbler. Sometimes the bird is much, much more that just a dead turkey slung over a shoulder.