Sunday, December 12, 2004
Twilight turkey hunt relieves seasonal stress
Mark Taylor
Mark Taylor's Outdoors column and notebook appears regularly in The Roanoke Times.
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For many, the holiday season is not one of joy.
It is one of stress.
Too much to do. Too little time. Too little money.
My December got off to a wonderful start when I had to shell out $400 just to get my aging Toyota truck through its annual inspection.
"Merry [bleeping] Christmas," my smiling mechanic said when I handed him a check and he handed me the estimate for the $700 repair the engine still needs.
It could be a lot worse and it is for many. Still, when the opportunity came Thursday afternoon to get away from bills, deadlines and frenzied crowds of shoppers, I took it.
The day's pouring rain actually worked into my plans for a turkey hunt at a friend's farm in Bedford County.
Turkeys often head for open fields when it's raining. My plan was to ease through the strips of woods that crisscross the farm while scanning openings for birds.
It didn't take long to find turkeys. After a half-mile walk along a wooded ridge I spotted seven turkeys in the middle of an adjacent field, about 200 yards distant.
Too bad I didn't have a turkey dog. I would have sent the dog to scatter the flock then set up to call. Instead, I now had to try to figure out where the birds were headed, set up and try to call them to within shotgun range.
I eased through the woods to an old barn at the edge of the field. There, with two dozen cattle milling around me, I waited behind a large fence post while the birds slowly fed my way.
I looked at my watch. It was 3:15 p.m. I had almost two hours to see what would happen.
The hunt took me back 25 years.
When I was a teenager I spent countless hours stalking mallards in flooded cow pastures near my rural neighborhood.
Dad wouldn't let me carry a shotgun because the fields were so close to homes, so I had to go after those ducks with my old recurve bow. Because there was limited cover around the fields, stalking them was pretty much impossible. But, like Charlie Brown trying to kick that football, I tried - and failed - time and time again.
This turkey hunt seemed more promising.
Thirty minutes into my vigil, the turkeys had moved about 100 yards, but then they changed directions and headed toward the woods where I had been standing when I spotted them.
I hustled back to try to head them off.
The turkeys had turned around again by the time I spotted them. That gave me a chance to ease down to the field edge. I started calling and, to my amazement, the turkeys started heading my way.
But, again, they turned, this time heading toward the barn.
When they were out of sight I bailed and scrambled back toward the barn. Peaking out I spotted them about 75 yards away.
It was perfect.
If the birds headed for me it would be as close to a slam dunk as you get in turkey hunting.
If they continued in the same direction they had to cover only 20 yards before a thick stand of evergreen saplings would be between us. I would be able to hustle up to the trees, to within 30 yards of the birds, then pop out and get a shot.
If they turned around, I'd go back and cut them off in the woods.
The only way this hunt would fail would be if the turkeys turned dead away from me. That seemed unlikely because they would have to cross 200 yards of open fields and a swollen creek to reach a suitable roosting area.
Of course, they headed away from me.
I watched in dismay as they trotted to the creek, fluttered over and headed for the woods.
With dusk just 15 minutes away it seemed my only hope was to scatter the birds, then return before dawn and try to call one in when they came off the roost.
So, with nothing to lose I took off at a dead run toward the turkeys. Four cattle that were in the area joined me in the race toward the creek.
After the shock of seeing a four cows and a guy in camo running toward them wore off, the turkeys also took off at a dead run - together - into the woods.
I stopped, panting and laughing.
I would not be bringing a turkey home that evening, but I don't think that hunt could have been any better for me.
