They say that the third time is the charm, but last year was my third year chasing turkeys in Maine and I can't say that it was a charm. This was the fourth year and it was definitely going to be the year I got one I called to book the camp and was told we were more than welcome, but they weren't seeing many turkeys which they were attributing to winter kill. Thanks to Troy White for the honesty even when it could have cost him business. Only slightly discouraged, I piled all things camo into the truck and pointed it south picking up a friend, George Haley along the way. We arrived mid afternoon on the day prior to the season opener. We had spent countless hours prior to our arrival scouring maps and aerial imagery to aid in our scouting. Several phone calls secured us access back onto promising private land we had previously hunted on and we were ready to connect with some turkeys. Our first stop was extremely promising as we crested a knoll and there in the center of the field were five turkeys. Two were toms, two were jakes and there was a lone hen. Weighing the male to female ration we liked our odds and filed the necessary landscape details into our memory bank before continuing to cruise the country side in search of a plan B location. We were fortunate enough to meet up with some friends who are locals, Lee and Terry Day who have watched these birds all spring, and were generous enough to show us lots of promising locations. We found a few big toms, but they all seemed to have a hen with them and my past experience has been less successful with henned up toms. After developing a plan B, C and even D in case something jeopardized plan A, we opted to resort back to our original location as the odds still seemed to be the steepest in our favor. After waiting until darkness cloaked the landscape we snuck out along the edge of the field and set our pop-up blind in a strategic location. We then navigated back along the tree line as cautiously as possible to prevent spooking any birds roosted nearby. Satisfied with our prep work, we went back to the camp and filled our bellies with cheddar bratwurst and macaroni and cheese before hitting the pillow to dream about earth shattering gobbles until the alarm did shatter sleep around 3:00 a.m. As the aroma of coffee slowly filled the camp, the anticipation filling our heads finally gave way to grins on our faces as our camp clad bodies emptied the camp and got into the pickup. We drove slowly along the pot hole filled road and sipped as much of the scalding hot coffee as physically possible until we reached our destination. Leaving the warmth of the pickup we set off into the cold, drizzling blackness that enveloped everything and made visibility zero. Following the outline of the trees skylined, we found the blind and pacing twenty yards set our decoys into a pattern that seemed realistic to us though we are not avian experts. Shortly after we had settled on our hunting stools inside the blind we saw a couple of other hunters moving into the same field we were in. We flashed a light at them to make them aware of our presence and they must be commended for doing the ethical thing of backing out and finding a different spot.
The first hour was extremely quiet, with only a couple of distant gobbles to insure us that there were turkeys in the same county. Then I noticed a turkey working slowly towards us feeding as it came. First glance showed it to be a hen, but I thouroughly glassed her and tried to wish her into a tom, without success. As she reached 40 yards, she worked into the woods and the next 20 minutes was quiet. Then we heard quite a ruckus of yelping and cutting coming from behind us in the woods. Letting loose with a gobble and a series of hen yelps and cuts we finally had her attention, and then real close a gobble. It was so loud I thought I could hear the blind flapping. I had no sooner leaned to peer out the window when a big old tom came in on a dead run right to the nearest jake decoy. He proceeded to go into full strut pose and strut in a circle around the decoy. Now I was in a predicament, because where he opted to hold up was in my blind spot where there was no window in the blind. The shot lined up perfectly for George and I whispered, "Take him, I'll get the next one." His response was to level the tom with a perfectly placed shot to his head at 10 yards. I looked over at George and after a silent celebratory high five we continued calling in hopes of luring in another bird. Those efforts were unsuccessful and as we gathered George's bird, I couldn't stop admiring it's beauty. Kind of ugly at first glance, once up close their head takes on a whole other level of detail and intricacy making it interesting. The other feathers have an almost iridescent sheen to them as the shimmered in the early morning sun. We loaded the beauty up and headed to the tagging station, where we admired all 19.6 pounds of him and his 9.5" beard and 1" spurs. He was an awesome bird, but was all beat up, presumably from fighting for dominance. After tagging that bird, we continued on a quest get me a bird. After multiple spot and stalks and an extremely exciting calling scenario in thick woods, I was still bird less at 3:00 p.m. Opting to go back to the blind to sit for a couple of hours in hopes the disbanded birds might move back through the area, we settled in for what we were sure was a long wait. Five minutes later though, we had a gobbler interested and every time we would call he would gobble back. After half an hour of this, we were quite focused on the task at hand when George turned the opposite way and said "Turkey!" Sure enough, I spun and saw the bright red head bobbing up through the adjacent cut headed our direction. He was spooky though, and I don't think he liked the looks of our gobbler decoy, but his 4" beard was plain as day to me and he was in range! Easing the shotgun into position, I waited what seemed like an eternity, but was probably 5 seconds for him to clear a stump, before my index finger tightened and the long barrel roared as the turkey flattened to the ground. I had a turkey!!!! I was so excited, the fact that it was a jake didn't dampen that enthusiasm one bit. We both had a turkey on opening day, out of the same blind, within 15 yards of each other, it was an amazing day. Enjoy the pictures and the next post should be up shortly!
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