This was a crazy hunt. Anyone in their right mind after listening to the weather report would have stayed in bed but Al and I decided to go out anyway in hopes the weather would change.
At 5 a.m. the wind was howling and we new the rain was coming. We drove out to one of Al's favourite turkey hunting grounds. This particular area is a nice mix of rolling hills, pasture, treelines and bush. We began calling right away and immediately heard gobbles from two different birds.
We made our way down to what we thought was a good ambush spot against a cedar split rail fence. This was in a tree line which bordered one of the opened fields leading to the bush where we were sure the turkeys were. We set out our decoys in the field and started calling. We managed to get some responses, however, the turkeys didn't seem like they were getting any closer. At this point the rain began to fall. We continued to call but nothing happened.
No gobbles, no sound, nothing. It was as if the rain stifled the turkeys completely.
We stayed in that spot for about an hour. Finally we decided that if the turkeys weren't going to come to us, we would go and find them. We followed the treeline to the edge of the bush. Al tried a few hen calls but still nothing. We new the turkeys were in there but where were they? Where did they go?
We made our way into the bush walking slowly and stopping, listening, giving turkey calls along the way. We completed a huge loop throughout the bush and finally ended up back out into the field.
Still nothing.
Where could the turkeys be? By this time we were getting rained on pretty good. We realized at this point that the turkeys must be hunkered down some where in that bush and they've probably been in the same spot since the rain began. We needed to come up with a strategy that was going to work.
Al decided that it probably wouldn't be a bad idea if we set up as close as possible to the bush where we originally heard the gobbles. We could sit down and relax, call and maybe the birds would come to us. So, that's exactly what we did. We followed a treeline all the way to the edge of the bush. We found another cedar split rail fence which cornered off the opened field adjacent to the bush we were in. I sat with my back up against one corner of the fence and Al sat with his back up against the other corner. We were about one meter apart from one another. Al used his slate call.
We watched one hen way off in the distance for about twenty minutes. We watched her disappear into another bush and that was the last we saw of her. By this time both Al and I were getting a little drowsy.
This is where it gets a little crazy.
As Al was dozing off, his turkey call slid and fell off his lap. He opened his eyes to grab his turkey call and at the same time he caught something in the corner of his eye. The movement Al noticed was coming directly towards me.
I mean, directly, behind me just on the other side of the cedar fence.
Al sees two jakes right there. Right behind me only three feet away.
Al, as quietly as possible, says "Jeff, Jeff , two jakes," I wake up and immediately look out into the field in the direction where I think he means.
Al says, "No, behind you, right behind you. They're right behind you".
Instantly I hear 'cluck, cluck' and I can tell there's two birds basically breathing down my neck. At this point, my heart is pounding. Al is telling me not to move and I don't know what were going to do. I know in order to shoot one of these birds I'm going to have to turn 180 degrees. That's almost impossible without spooking them.
Now, it's a cat and mouse waiting game.
I'm waiting for Al to tell me when he thinks I can turn around. He finally whispers for me to turn my head slowly. So I do. I turn slowly and peak between two horizontal rails in the fence. Now, I'm really excited because I can see five turkeys standing there looking straight at us. They're clucking lightly so I know the jig is not up just yet.
At this point I can tell they're a little nervous but they still can't quite figure out what's going on.
Al is lightly hen calling and I'm guessing they can see our decoy through the fence. I see the space in the fence where I would like to put my gun barrel but it would have caused me to make to much movement. I decided to slowly turn my whole body and slide the gun barrel in a much smaller opening down lower on the fence.
So far so good.
However, this did cause the birds to become more nervous and they began to move. I had to act fast. I was sitting on the ground. I recoiled my back down as much as I could in order to get a good bead through the fence. That was quite a challenge but I managed to do it. The turkeys were getting pretty spooked at this point and they began heading towards the bush.
One turkey, in particular, still had his neck stretched out and so I lined him up and pulled the trigger. The turkey went down and I turned to look back at Al expecting him to be sitting down. Instead, he's standing with his shot gun already shouldered, aiming and he lets one have it.
Crazy, crazy. Two old buddy's jumping up and down, high 'fiving' each other. The double header turkey slam!
*Many thanks to Jeff and Al for submitting their story and photos to Muskoka Outdoors
