- Details
- Category: Turkey
- Published: Friday, 10 May 2013 18:34
- Written by Greg
Cat-and-Mouse and a Tom
The night before, an early spring thunder shower pounded the mountains near my house and left a skiff of snow. It’s now 6:00 a.m., in the foothills close to home I’m standing in an open meadow surrounded by mostly oak brush, my boots soaking wet from the short walk through the new spring shoots of grass. I reach into my pocket, retrieve my glass friction call and let out a couple of yelps. Just awesome, the still of the morning interrupted by the answer of a lone gobbler…instantly my heart is racing!
Who knew that it would take an hour and a half of playing cat-and-mouse with this old tom before I’d see his bright red head?
Luckily a nearby trail wound its way through the oak brush in the general direction of "old tom" turkey. I was off. After about 10 minutes I stopped and made a couple of soft calls, the gobbler responded again…I was getting close. Slowly I weaved my way along the trail until I was paralleling a small canyon that held some large pine trees, about the spot where I imagined the turkey would be. Again I made a few soft clucks and "old tom" responded from 100 yards across the canyon.
Where ol' tom turkey was hiding Easy to slip silently away into the oak brush
For the next while we played the game of calling back and forth. I was careful not to over call, but this ol’ tom was not coming in…and soon moved off. I pushed on toward him; we repeated this calling back-and-forth scenario over and over.
After a while, I was finally able to make my way up the hillside and got above the wary Rio Grande. I now found myself in a clearing that stretched on for 150 yards or so. Carefully I made my way forward until I was one third of the way across the opening, staying on the extreme fringe of the clearing; all the time straining my eyes to catch the slightest glimpse in case the turkey was up ahead...in hopes of seeing him before seeing me. Pausing behind and peering through the leafless branches of a small bush, I softly called again. A thunderous gobble hit me like a ton of bricks! I held my breath. Peeking through the limbs I could make out the bright red head of a gobbler 100 yards away on the extent of the clearing!
For the next several minutes I stared and watch the gobbler as he looked intently in my direction. Finally he moved a few steps further into the open, turned and strutted proudly. At that moment I ever so slowly lowered myself to my knees. Now that I was out of sight, I settled into a comfortable kneeling position that I figured I could hold indefinitely. I popped a reed call into my mouth, raised my shotgun, pointed my 12 gauge in the turkey’s general direction, made a couple of soft calls and waited.
My arms were burning, my lower leg was going numb, my foot was cramping…I didn’t think I could hold this position any longer. The fleeting thought to jump up and take a quick shot almost won me over, but the reality of knowing that I only had to wait long enough for this old long beard clear a few branches, by taking one or two more steps, kept me grounded.
Boom! Instantly the wily old gobbler hit the dirt 38 yards in front of me!
