The Devotion of the Turkey Hunter
When I started turkey hunting with my grandpa as a kid, it was like hunting aliens.
I didn’t know anything about them. All I knew was they were big, noisy, and you got to call to them to draw them into your position for a shot.
Therin lay the draw to it all. I got to speak another, inhuman language.
Then something happened that changed everything for me. When I was twelve or so, Pop and I were taking a break from an uneventful early morning hunt. When we pulled up to the house at the farm, I asked him if I could take my calls and my gun and walk about a hundred yards behind the barn on my own to see if I could strike up a gobble. I randomly walked down the road along the ridge-top and found a tree to sit down against. I made a sorry-sounding yelp on my Quaker Boy slate call, and to my absolute shock, not one, but several gobbles ripped through the timber only a few yards over the hill from me. Both my uncle and my grandpa were shocked when I came walking back to the house with a bird over my shoulder.
That was the moment turkey hunting dug its talons into me. And it did it in such a way that I’ve told my wife that I don’t know if I could live anywhere that didn’t have turkeys.
I kept hunting with my grandpa until he passed away. But as a testament to the draw of turkey hunting and the passion that turkey hunters carry, I’ll never forget my final conversation with him. As he lay in his hospital bed, hardly able to speak, and just a few months before the Missouri turkey season opened, I did my best to keep him awake. I knew our time together was short as a massive stroke had done its worst to bring down the person who was, in my mind, a mountain of a human being. I was just trying to think of something that would spark some kind of positive response in the most challenging of moments, so I asked, “Well Pop, you think we’re going to get another gobbler this season?” His heart rate increased ever-so-slightly, and he slowly turned his head in my direction, and with tired eyes working hard to focus directly on me, he whispered, “I hope.”
On that day, I was already a turkey hunter. But turkey hunting sunk into my DNA more deeply than ever. From then on, it meant much more than just another small amount of time to spend with my grandpa. I needed to turkey hunt. It wasn’t a choice.
The other night, I was scrolling through my telecheck records. Since the time I turned 21, I have tagged 31 turkeys between hunting in Missouri and Texas. I’m now 38. It’s in my blood.
This year was no different, although it didn’t end as I typically see it through. It started with a bang, as my son and I scored on a successful youth season hunt in Missouri. It ended with a judgment call that, I don’t regret in the least.
Youth Season
The opening day of Missouri’s youth season was a complete bust. Extremely high winds had turkeys completely out of sorts. We managed to find a single pair of hens seeking shelter in a huge ravine.
The next morning, we set up in the same place, hoping that a gobbler would be relatively close. As the sun rose, we were shocked as what seemed to be the entire flock on the farm was strutting and gobbling within only a few yards of where we parked our vehicle.
We managed to work around the flock and Easton connected on a great gobbler. We packed up, got the delicious rewards of the hunt in the freezer, and headed to one of our favorite trout parks in Missouri to spend time with some great friends.
Texas
Several years ago, I went on my first out-of-state turkey hunt to west Texas, near Iraan. The terrain was some of the most rugged I’ve seen. Large trees were scarce, and if you could manage to find a big tree, usually in a creek bed, there would likely be turkeys. I killed my first two Texas Rio Grande gobblers there, and it forever stayed with me. But I never really thought I would head back to the Lone Star State to do it again.
Then in 2022, a friend called with an invite to south Texas, just south of San Antonio. The wide-open oak flats had their own special charm on a ranch that held a variety of native and exotic game species. I was able to take two beautiful longbeards there, one of which was my largest to date.
This season, yet again, my friend and I made a trip to the northwest side of San Antonio, where my breath was taken from me as I saw the true hill country of Texas. Rough mountains spring up from out of nowhere, and we made our way into them with no clue how a turkey could survive there. Clearly, they are more resilient than we could have ever imagined.
On our first afternoon in, I was able to call in the first gobbler of the trip nearly into the front yard of the house we were staying in. My friend hit that Tom with a blast from his shotgun, but not fatally. The bird flew to the top of the ridge where he came from, and as we tracked, I stepped on a small twig. It snapped sharply, and two gobblers shock gobbled just a few yards from me. I cut down both of them with my shotgun, partly because I simply had it with me in the event that I came across the wounded Tom, but mostly because I was in shock that they allowed me to get so close. Shortly after I killed the two, I saw the wounded Tom, but he flew away from me as though he wasn’t hurt.
As I walked back to the house, a longbeard over each shoulder, my friends were smiling. It was then that we all knew this was going to be a wild trip.
Breaking Barriers
After that episode, I told my friend that I wanted to try to accomplish something I never had with turkeys. I wanted to try to get a bow kill. In this case, it was going to be tough. No blind, and no decoys meant I was going to have to let nature do its thing. I would have one chance. A strutting turkey with his head hidden by his fan would allow me to draw.
Bowhunting turkeys had always been appealing to me. The challenge is immense. Your target area is about the size of a baseball no matter if your aim is for the heart and lungs, or a full decapitation. And to add to the challenge, I decided to try to get it on video.
That evening, I was blown away to see five different gobblers. Two of which were brought directly passed me by feeding hens. Fumbling with cameras, I noticed that the turkeys were going to do exactly what I needed them to do. I ranged the bigger Tom, and adjusted the dial of my sight. When my arrow left the string, I watched the lighted nock trace perfectly into the bird. He fell immediately. The other turkey started flogging the dead one, as is common for a subordinate gobbler due to pecking order, and the commotion called in another gobbler.
I did a horrible job of capturing it on camera. I was just happy that it worked out as it did. Another layer of turkey hunting success was enough to satisfy me for the whole trip, but it wasn’t over.
Friendships
Friendships are the lifeblood of the hunting community. I would be completely remiss if I didn’t spend some time talking about the people that made my Texas trip this season so successful. Since I had tagged three Toms on the first afternoon of the trip, I decided to let my friend Jeremy head out on his own the next morning. I took his son Jack.
Jack had never killed an adult turkey in our home state of Missouri, although he had taken a Jake or juvenile gobbler. That morning’s mission was to successfully harvest a mature bird. The morning was foggy and wet. Seemingly uncharacteristic for the territory we were hunting. There was very little gobbling, but eventually, two hens drifted off the plateau slope toward us. We watched them peck around in front of us, and about the time I told Jack to stay ready, a bird appeared that dwarfed the hens that weren’t much bigger than a barnyard chicken.
Jack and I saw the beard sticking out and cascading off the wet turkey’s chest. I wanted the bird to get as close as he would come, but foolishly, I was trying to get the shot on my phone’s camera. The bird turned broadside with his head up, aware of our presence, and I whispered, “Kill him right there Jack.” Jack’s Mossberg belched out a load of Federal shot and the bird’s head snapped back. He flopped into the same ditch he emerged from.
After Jack’s kill, Jeremy, Jack, and I kept calling and kept killing. All total, we took home eight turkeys. I harvested my final bird early Sunday morning in heavy winds in the same meadow where I took my bow harvest. All the while, our host and dear friend Steve simply cheered us on, giving us all a ribbing when we missed, which we all did, and always having food ready after the hunt.
The Missouri Meat Grinder
After Texas, I was as confident as I could be about killing turkeys. After I got home and reset myself, I went out on the third day of Missouri’s season. That hunt lasted about two hours, as a big Missouri gobbler stepped out silently only a few yards from my blind.
But after that was a grind. I hunted the majority of the season, with several close calls, a discouraging miss, and extremely call-shy turkeys. On the Thursday before the end of the season, exhausted, and completely out-maneuvered by a pair of turkeys I had encounters with before, I decided to throw in the towel for the season. Lower turkey numbers than usual, and four birds were already taken from the farm by my son, myself, and another hunter, all the challenges of the previous hunts, and fluid weather conditions made the decision pretty easy.
No Regrets
Even though Missouri didn’t turn out like I really wanted it to, I had my chance. I have nothing to regret this season. Even with cutting my season a few days short, I’m satisfied with the outcome. There was some struggle, but the joy of being able to hunt, and the unbelievable success rate drowned out all the noise of the grind.
Turkey hunting isn’t for everyone. It’s for a person that is willing to learn the intricacy of a species. It’s for the person unafraid of early mornings and long days. It’s for a person who loves to stop and observe nature and it’s transition from winter to spring, and sometimes spring to summer. It’s for the self-starter and the person who is versatile in their ability to change techniques and learn new ones. And it’s for the person unafraid to be humbled by a bird with a brain smaller than a golf ball as you journey toward that coveted moment when you hike that same bird back to your vehicle.