by Darcy Dean
At 5:30 am, I slowly trudged out of my house while still rubbing the sleep from my eyes. I was decked out in my warm camo clothes and prepared to sit in the woods for hours on end while masked in clothes that resembled the features of nature around me.
Just a few minutes later my uncle, Uncle Guy, pulled up to my house in his ATV. He brought two shotguns and three turkey decoys with him. We got our things situated and then began the long trek through the woods in the dark of night. We were finally going turkey hunting.
Uncle Guy and I continued out deeper and deeper into the serenity and relative calm of the woods that is only evident before the sun rises.
We finally reached our destination, which was two giant oak trees with roots that extend like fingers deep into the moist earth of the woods that overlook a small clearing. Here, we set up our decoys and made our final preparations for the long hunt. We settled in on our seat pads that were between the roots of the tree on the ground and then we began to call to the turkeys.
There are tons of different turkey calls that you can use. They can range from mouth calls to box calls. When I go hunting by myself, I use my own box call but because I was hunting with Uncle Guy, I let him call with his own calls of which his favorite is his mouth call. There are many different noises that turkey can make, and they also vary by gender. Only male turkeys can gobble but both males and females can yelp, which is the call that we were trying to imitate at this point in time. Uncle Guy began calling and calling with no response, but we were far from giving up hope and continued with our endeavors to lure in a turkey and shoot it.
After a few hours of calling, we finally got a response. It sounded like it was just on the other side of the creek from us. We called some more, and he gobbled one more time and then didn’t make another noise. We had no idea what happened to him, but we continued to wait.
Another hour later I saw two turkeys walking by in the middle of the creek. They were too far away to shoot, and I couldn’t even really tell if they were males or females, but I immediately let Uncle Guy know and we called out to them. I thought that they had walked on without stopping but a few minutes later I saw them walking towards us on this side of the creek.
I was super excited, and I got ready for them to walk out in front of me but unfortunately, they stopped just short of where I could shoot. At this point, I could tell that they were males, and I could shoot them if only they would get into position. Uncle Guy still hadn’t seen them, and he moved just enough that the turkeys saw him. They immediately let out a loud warning puck and took off into the woods and we didn’t see them again.
We stayed in the woods for another thirty minutes after that event, but we didn’t see anything else while we were there. Although we didn’t get the chance to shoot anything, we still had a really great time, and it was a wonderful experience.
Unfortunately, turkey season ends next Saturday and after that I won’t be able to go hunting anymore this year, but I am still hopeful that I will kill a turkey before the end of the season.
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