Osage Roost
All Hunting => Spring Turkey Hunting => Topic started by: Jake St. John on September 10, 2010, 08:33:58 PM
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Here is a newly recorded, old story, for Charlie's AM Coffee. I plan on working on calls early and wanted to beat the press time.
From Frustration to Delta Jubilation
I was just looking back through my friend Wade’s book Bird of Courage to see if I could get an approximate date on when this story occurred. I finally decided it had to be in the late 1980’s or about 23 years ago. I am not good on dates.
As Mr. Wineman and I have indicated, unlike the delta birds that we were used to, it took us several years of hunting the south Mississippi hill birds of Franklin Co. to learn their patterns and tendencies. After doing so, we started killing them like the delta birds.
The learning years were very frustrating, as I will share with this story. - I had gone to Franklin Co. the second weekend of the season this particular year without my turkey running mate. His granddaughter’s birthday occurs about this time each spring and he was where he needed to be. At the birthday festivities.
Having arrived at Claude Griffin’s hunting camp near Hamburg, Ms., alone, I got very little sleep before rousting early and heading up to the top of one of the steepest hogbacks in Franklin Co. As it turned light, I moved down the ridge going north until I heard a nice gobbler sounding off between two finger ridges to my east. Moving down the closest ridge, I set up on his level even with the saddle he was on the opposite ridge. Both he and his hens pitched down out in front of me, but I could not compete with all of his hens and they took off and went up and over the main ridge to the northwest. I got a rounder but to no avail and they went silent. Later that day I ran into two hunters from S. La. that were in camp. They asked where I had hunted and I indicated the area and that I was going to hunt the same general area in the AM. The next AM while I am standing on the ridge top, the same two hunters came up. They indicated they heard me the AM before working the bird to the east and before I could say anything, the old bird gobbled that AM across the ridge to the West. The two super aggressive guys said “We are going to work this bird over here.” They took off towards the same bird that I worked the day before. He had just crossed the ridge and roosted on that side of the ridge. I backed off headed to another area and preceded to call up a totally different hunter. Totally frustrated by the morning events, I packed my gear and headed back to Greenville.
On the 3-hour drive back to the delta, and after I cooled off, my route took me close to a public Wildlife Management area called Anderson Tulley. It is a huge block of woods just outside the Mississippi levee system about 45 miles south of Greenville. I decided a noon hunt was in order. Arriving at the check in at 10:00, I walked way back across two creeks to an area that I liked to hunt. Getting back there is a chore. Over half of the walk is through water that varies from ankle to almost knee deep. By that time of day the mosquitoes were hatching out in swarms and it was plain hot. I cleared the marshy area, and walked through a dry area to an old monarch of a cottonwood tree. I sat between the huge roots coming off the butt section near the ground and tried to cool off. I put my gloves and head net on for both camouflage and mosquito protection. I scraped a bunch of cottonwood leaves over my legs and put a single reed Penn Woods mouth call in my mouth and set my box by my leg. Waiting about ten minutes, I let an aggressive series on my mouth call and was cut by an equally aggressive hen answering back. I came immediately back on her. She came back again and then HE gobbled. A good 9 out of 10 on the gobble scale. The next minute, the hens ( 4 of them) are racing up to me. I remained calm and they stopped about 10 feet in front of me. It was then that the big boy came walking fast and stopped behind a group of trees 35 yards out. He gobbles and then started some of the heaviest drumming I had ever heard. All the time the hens are just sitting there. Since he was in range and shielded by a couple of trees, I decided to ease my gun to shoulder and take the shot when he cleared. As I did so, the hens started putting and fast walking to my left. The gobbler comes out of strut; turns and I put a good shot on him as he started to my left after the hens.
As I was recording the bird at the check in stand, the local warden Mr. Curry came up and I was showing him the big bird with a huge twirling rope of a beard, 11 ½ inches long. Mr. Curry asked where I killed the bird, and when I described the area, he said, “You killed my bird”. I have been hunting that bird for the last 2 years.
For a young hunter that day, my FRUSTRATION was replaced by DELTA JUBILATION.
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great story John RkLu
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John I love your stories and I'm sure Charlie will be tickled to read this when he gets home *cheers*
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Good reading!!
Mike
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Yep, that was a good story...enjoyed it..thanks....But you are much more easygoing than I am...I think I would have had some strong words for those guys at a minimum.