Kentucky Fall Turkey Hunting 2009

By Kentuckyhunter

This past Sunday was a nice cool morning in the mid 40’s with calm winds which made it a perfect day to take a drive out to my uncle’s place in Robertson County, Kentucky and make an attempt at bagging a bird. Running on only a few hours of sleep and some take out coffee, I headed down the back roads in the dark trying to find a radio station not featuring fire and brimstone and settled on a Chicago sports station. I pulled up into the driveway of the old abandoned house on his farm and stepped out to see a few meteors arching across the dark sky. Donning my turkey vest, I took a few minutes to freshen up the surface of my friction calls. Into the game pouch of my vest I slipped my folding blind which I hoped to later use to create a camouflage fence around my position. I loaded my 870 twelve gauge with no. 6 Heavy-Shot 3” loads, grabbed a hen decoy, slipped the strap of my seat around my neck, and stepped into the woods.

Carefully I picked my way down the overgrown trail in the dim light of the stars. We haven’t had much time to do maintenance on the trails and numerous trees had blown over and saplings had sprung up everywhere. Resting every few feet, I paused to blow my owl call in order to solicit a gobble and possibly locate where the turkeys were roosting. I have had great luck finding turkeys on the ridge I was walking. You can read about me spooking a huge gobbler from this ridge during last year’s archery season in a previous blog post. Just as I was able to start seeing the tops of the trees and a few squirrels jumping from limb to limb, I reached the spot where I thought the turkeys would be roosted. My plan was to get in among the birds and spook them in all directions so that I might call them back to my location. The birds had not read the script (or perhaps they had!), and no birds were roosted on the ridge.

I slowly made my way down hill, making a few yelps on my slate call. I recently picked up a new Derby City striker. It is made of old growth maple which is over 500 years old. The tone quality of this striker is truly amazing. The company makes their calls and strikers in the off hours of a musical instrument factory using high quality instrument grade woods. I don’t have any of their calls, but this new striker makes all of my friction calls sound great. Far in the distance I could hear a couple of gobbles, so I headed down a creek at the base of the hill toward the sound. I reached a spot where another creek merged with the creek I had been traveling along as well as the convergence of several ridges. I again made a few yelps and purrs, and was rewarded with distant yelps from some hens which seemed to come from the back property line. I headed up a ridge that went off at an angle from where the sound seemed to come from so that I could attempt to circle around the turkeys and not come directly at them. I fitted my mask to my face and slipped on my gloves so as to be invisible as possible to their sharp eyes.

Reaching the crest of the ridge I looked into a large hayfield surrounded by timber and scanned it for any movement. Again, I made a few yelps and heard turkeys yelping back below in the woods to my right as well as yelps to my far left in the deeper woods. My plan was to move between these two groups of turkeys and try to stir them up with a few calls so as to bring them together with me in the middle hopefully ready to take a shot. The damp ground and wet leaves made my steps nearly silent, but a deer smelled me and blew out of the woods in front of me. Hoping for the best, I continued on my path to bisect the two flocks of turkeys when a sharp yelp stopped me in my tracks. Slowly, I dropped my decoy and eased my seat from around my neck and set it next to an oak tree. This tree had on main stump with several smaller trunks coming from the center. I flipped down the cushion on my vest and sat down. I scanned the woods looking for the source of the yelp and directly in front of me across a small ravine was a large black turkey with its neck stretched out looking for whoever was making the footsteps in the woods. The bird seemed to be right at the edge of my gun range as I slowly raised the shotgun to my cheek. I should have checked the yardage with my range finder, but I was so busted that I was afraid that the movement would spook the already alert bird. I took careful aim and squeezed off the shot. The bird flopped and then got back up and half flew and half ran into some thick cover. Racking another shell, I flipped on the safety and took off across the ravine and lost sight of the bird. I picked my way through the thickly spaced sapling and heard the bird flapping ahead. Reaching a small opening, the bird raised its head and started to run. I let loose another shot and the bird was thankfully done.

As I struggled to make my way back through the brush, I finally reached the spot where I had shot the bird. He had a nice thick rope of a beard, but its spurs were less than an inch. I estimate that in the spring he would have been a two year old bird. With the deed done, I reached into my vest to make note of the yardage–63 yards! It was definitely a marginal shot with a 12 gauge and probably not one I would have taken if I had checked the distance first. I think it is important for guys to admit when they do something wrong, and this is definitely one of those times. There is no way I should have taken that shot and I am very lucky I was able to track down the gobbler. I am going to chalk it up to experience and hopefully I will do the right thing next time around. In the meantime, I can’t wait to make up a pot of turkey chili this week!