Was He Down to the Fifth Feather?
This question is actually an inside joke between my hunting partner and I ,but it has a funny story on its origin. When Turkey Man, as I refer to him, and I first started hunting in south Mississippi there was already a TURKEY EXPERT hunting the property that we had just gotten permission to hunt. A turkey expert is the first to tell you how to kill turkeys. You have to take every word that comes forth from his mouth with a grain of salt. Never mind you that my hunting partner had grown up hunting the one of the last two surviving turkey population in Mississippi at Tunica, Ms., and that the turkeys we were now starting to hunt in Franklin Co. had a 50 % chance of being cannon netted birds that came from Tunica Co.
On our first opening day trip to Franklin Co. in the early 1990’s we camped in a gravel pit on the property. It was the coldest opening morning on record in Ms. This did not prevent the abundance of gobbling that we heard. It was unbelievable. Later that day we had a visit from the local Turkey Expert. Everything out of his mouth was to show us that he had been hunting the area and that he was the expert. He elaborated on his calling prowess and that he was calling and placing well in turkey calling contests. He elaborated on birds that he had killed etc. We were glad that he had introduced himself so, for no other reason than, we did not hunt the same areas.
Towards the end of our weekend, Mr. Expert came back by, mainly to see where we had worked birds. We had not killed birds and spent that first weekend learning how to hunt hogback territory hill birds. This was completely different hunting than flat Delta style gobbler hunting that we had grown up on. Once learned, we started killing birds in Franklin Co. Mr. Expert pumped us and I volunteered that I had spent the whole weekend hunting an old bird with about 23 hens in a creek bottom. This fellow had run into Turkeyman the first afternoon of our hunt, so he knew the area he was hunting.
Upon leaving, Turkeyman and Expert had exchanged phone numbers. Expert was taking the first week of the season off to hunt and would be on the property for the next week. Towards the end of the first week Turkeyman called Expert to see what was going on with the turkeys. Expert told how he had called up the group of 23 hens on the creek bottom that I was hunting and killed the bird that I had hunted. “He was down to the fifth feather from strutting so much and there is no sense on ya’ll coming back down here.” “That is a sure sign that they are gobbled out.”
Last year was the 16th year Turkeyman and I have hunted open weekend gobblers in Franklin Co. We always comment “Well it’s over, there is no sense in hunting them anymore this season, he was down to the fifth feather.”
