Patience
Patience is a Virtue. In turkey hunting, it can mean the difference in what you are toting back to camp. It can also mean the difference in the quality of hunt that you have that morning. Now I am not saying that there are times when you need to be more aggressive on certain birds. Changing your location on a particular bird to make him think you are a new hen and can be very productive. Sometimes the situation dictates that you be more aggressive. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. Let me tell a story that will illustrate the point.
Last year lady luck was especially good to me early. I killed two of the biggest birds that I ever killed in the first two hunts at Tunica, Ms. On the other hand, my hunting partner and generous landowner host was having tough luck on the old birds that he was carrying over from the previous three years with no hatch. The birds were down all up and down the Ms. River and the inhabitants were seasoned veteran monarchs with long beards and sharp spurs. One of the large high land clubs along the river, Catfish Point at Scott, Ms., usually has well over 20 to 30 birds killed by the second weekend of the season. Last year, after the first two weekends, they had killed 4 birds. I have noticed that once you fool with them and fail to connect, the next encounter seems to be tougher. Tactics with loud cutts, cackling, and in general all the tricks that have worked in the past seem to be snubbed. Here is where I backed off. I took the back seat if you will to my best friend and host. We usually do this in the form of last choice of hunting spots or letting another guest come up and hunt. I was delegated to sections of the woods where birds had rarely been seen; I also drew the KP duties. A very good turkey hunter and friend of ours had no luck at all on Catfish the first two weeks of the season. OH, he was working birds. Every day he said he would take his daily licking from Mr. Longbeard and then go fishing. After the first two weeks at Catfish, he came up and started hunting Tunica birds all day long. That did not help get him a bird the whole turkey season.
Towards the end of the season my host had scored on a couple of Miss. River Monarchs and invited me up for the last couple of weekends. In a section of woods running north and south along Tunica Cutoff, there was a bird in the narrow north end that a hunter had given up and I got a chance to hunt. I started at the south end that was hot early in the season and hearing nothing, I moved quickly north covering a lot of ground. I was doing my standard locator calling. I would walk 250 steps and cutt, walk 250 steps and cackle. Usually this if very effective, but this AM I was up to the Chair Road near the north end and had not heard a peep. Knowing the woods got more open and narrower north of there, I had two options. I could walk the chair road east to old river, get below the ridge and continue north, or I could blind up and pull a Dr. Winn. This is where you build a large log blind and sit in the one spot till you call your bird in. He would do this consistently in the late morning or afternoon. If you ever heard the man handle a solid walnut and persimmon original Stribling box, you would understand why! Well, I built the finest blind in a log dump just east of the intersection of the Lake Bank Road and the Chair road. This was a wheat planted log dump opening about 80 yards by 80 yards. I was on the south side, in range of the Lake Bank Road running north and south to my left. I had the Chair Road fifteen steps in front of me running east and west. I had complete command of any bird walking the River Road or crossing in front of me down the Chair Road. I had been in the woods about 2 and ½ hours. I started calling. At first I do soft calling and after a while I will turn up the volume and got more aggressive with the calling. Well, I had been there close to an hour and a half when I changed to my nephew’s Turpin reproduction gobble box. I hit a loud yelp on one side, hit the hen on the other and then gobbled. I got a strong gobble back. He was due north past the opening I was hunting and most likely he was in the Lake Bank Rd. I did a little cutting after he gobbled and he gobbled again. No need to call any more, I thought, he was going to take his time and migrate the 100 yards or so to me down the lake bank road. I did some clucking every once in a while along with a few yelps ever 20 minutes or so. Nothing. It had been an hour and half from his last gobble. It sounded like he may have moved slightly east after his first gobble. He could not have been 30 or 40 yards north of my little wheat patch and near the road. Most likely he had a hen or two with him.
Then the old brain starts over thinking the bird and I became impatient. I was close to the lake. All I had to do was get behind the log dump, cross the River Rd, and with the lake twenty foot lower than bank level, drop out of site next to the lake, walk the bank, and pop up to the river road near the bird. I would sit down as soon as I got to the road level and make a few calls on my mouth call. A new hen is what he needed. - With the maneuver completed, I did just that. I eased up over the bank, and sat. I pulled the mouth call out and acted like a new hen for another hour or so. Getting late, I decided he had gone east to Old River. I get up, walk 20 steps to the River Rd. and look at the tracks. I swear, there in front of me were the biggest gobbler tracks and one set of hen tracks, you guessed it, heading south past my log blind. Evidently, the bird made his move south the same time I was going north. The tracks went into the opening and straight south past the Chair Rd and my log blind. He came past at 30 steps. It would have been an easy shot if ole John Boy had stayed put. I followed of coarse but I have not had much luck trailing and calling one.
Staying put can pay dividends. I once pulled up to a group of gobbling birds on Woodstock Island about fly down time one morning. It was a similar log dump opening. Got to see the whole show at 55 yards. Over a period of 3 hours I watched one gobbler mate with a hen, saw two gobblers square off and bump chests, saw the main gobbler run a jake off 3 times. I had a squirrel run up my leg on onto the tree I was leaned against. With some soft calling, I pulled some hens in my direction and ole big boy quartered to 30 yards. Patience can pay big dividends!!!
