NEMO Sends....

 

Turkey Hunting Adventures

There I was, standing on the stoop at camp, having just finished calling intermittently for a few hours, moving around the field using three different calls. It's around 10AM. I had been at the calling for several hours. My shotgun was on the rack, unloaded, inside camp when three hens emerge from the old driveway, which had been mowed in August. The old driveway entrance to the field is about 30 yards from camp.

I had looked down the camp road with my bino's before I decided to let it rest for a while and saw nothing. I have, in the past, seen gobblers, jakes and hens walking on the road in a line after calling for less than an hour.

The hens started feeding along as they walked diagonally away from camp toward the lower left corner of the field. The field is rectangular shaped , 75X150 yards with the short axis facing camp. It (the field) is not table top flat. It kind of undulates with little pockets where a turkey can disappear from sight and generally slopes downhill away from camp. I froze waiting for them to get behind one of the several clumps of old apple trees that are dotted around the field, so that I could retrieve my shotgun and a couple rounds of 12 gauge #5's. The barrel I have mounted is modified choke, but the pattern is pretty tight. I've already harvested two turkeys with it in prior years at camp. Both of the others were harvested inside 20 yards, shot in the head and neck with multiple pellets of #5's.

These apple trees are the wild variety, more like leggy bushes than the apple trees one would find in an orchard. The apples they produce are small, dry, tart and mealy. Animals of all kinds, excepting coyotes and foxes, like them, especially deer, bear and turkeys. Drops disappear overnight. I digress.

The hens get behind one of the apple tree clumps and are now mostly screened from sight. I carefully open the screen door .and retrieve my shotgun and two rounds. I load inside camp, which is a NoNo; we have a rule, NO LOADED GUNS inside camp. I was the only one in camp and I wanted the sound of my pump action shotgun chambering a round to be muffled. I also pick up one of my calls and put it my jacket pocket.

Just as I emerge from camp, the hens come into the open and see me. Two of them run 10-15 yards in the direction they had been traveling, stop and look right at me. I freeze again. I have a camo coat, hat and jeans on. Camp is light colored and the sun is bright, although it shines from the other end of camp, so it's behind me. The sun shining from behind me will become important further on. I know that I'm standing out like a sore thumb due to the light coloration of camp's siding contrasting with my darkly colored clothing.

The hens start moving again continuing in the direction they had been traveling. They're now about 80 yards out. As they disappeared from sight behind another clump of apple trees, I decide to try to shorten the distance. I get down to the second clump of apple trees and get down on a knee. Remember the sun is shining from behind me so they can see me in silhouette if/when I move. There are no leaves left of the apple trees. I'm depending on the bare branches to breakup my outline. I make a quick low volume call. The hens come back into sight sort of heading toward me. I try to stay still, but I'm old and out of shape. The old muscles are starting to protest after 3-4 minutes kneeling. The hens are about 50 yards away. I inadvertently move, trying to ease a barking hip joint that I had strained earlier that morning climbing up onto a chair to light a propane lamp inside camp. The hens freeze for about 30 seconds, then continue on, feeding along the way. They get down to the corner of the field and enter the brush along the left edge of the field adjacent to a short roadway that had been cut through the brush some years back. The roadway is about 120 yards from camp. Since I'm now screened from the hens, as they're in the brush, I decide to walk down to the roadway to see what I could see. I can't see the hens or hear them moving around, so I figured that's the end of that. They're going to go to the property below our camp through the woods and feed through those fields. I turn around and head back to camp.

Just as I get back to the stoop, I looked over my shoulder and see the hens re-emerge from the brush into the field. They're walking diagonally at a shallow angle heading towards the brush on the other side and disappear in a dip in the field's topography. I walk quickly down, hunched over, to the second clump of apple trees, get down on a knee, and make a short call. Two heads pop up to where I can see them, looking right at me. They're about 60 yards away. There is no cover between the other side of the clump I'm trying to hide behind and the hens. I stay put, trying not to move. I'm very aware of the sun behind me. The hens change direction and head towards the brush on the opposite side of the field they were heading towards when they re-emerged AND they're heading towards me, but angling away from my position. The clump I'm using to sort of hide me is a little right of center, so I'm located about 40 yards from the brush line the hens are angling towards. Their bodies start disappearing again as they're heading into another dip in the field topography. When their heads disappear, I decide to try to try to shorten the distance. So I quickly walk hunched way over, well as quickly as I could in that position, get to about 20 yards from the crest of the dip the hens are behind, get down on one knee, and get my shotgun into firing position with a good cheek weld generally aiming at where I think they are.

A head pops up, I move the fluorescent orange front sight about 2 inches, lining up on the head and fire. I swear I saw that hen's eye bug out when she saw the muzzle swing on her. I didn't feel the recoil, although there probably was some, as my 12 gauge only weighs 6.5 pounds. I jacked a fresh round in, just in case, although I was pretty sure the hen was dead, picked up the fired case for a souvenir and walked over to where the hen was in death throws. One pellet went through the head just in back of the eye and several more kinda shredded the neck. One pellet lodged in the left side breast just under the skin.

All of this played out over the course of an hour or so.

Three hens entered two left.