by Larry “Mr. Whitetail” Weishuhn
I suspect many of you have grown up during the time when we’ve had spring turkey seasons. But, there was a time in Texas when we did not have spring turkey seasons. The only turkey hunting took place during the fall, concurrent with the regular deer hunting season. There were no spring turkey seasons in Texas until the early 1970s and then only in a few Hill Country counties. But that soon changed. In the mid-1970’s, while living in Abilene. In northwestern Texas, I helped open the first spring turkey season across many counties in Texas. I did so by going to landowners and having them sign a petition that they wanted a spring turkey season for gobblers, in addition to any turkey hunting season during the fall deer season.
I shot my first Texas non-fall turkey during the spring of 1977, the first year we had a spring gobbler season in northwestern Texas, on the MaGahee Ranch southwest of Abilene. I shot him with my .22 Mag/20-gauge Savage Model 42 over/under. He was a three-bearded gobbler that I called in with an ancient box call to within fifteen steps before pulling the trigger.
Back during those early days, I often hunted spring turkeys with my .270 Winchester bolt-action rifle. Regardless of using a rifle, I would not shoot a gobbler unless I called him to within 30-steps or less.
Interestingly, turkeys were not really hunted with shotguns until marauding Indians were placed on reservations. Until then, anyone after a turkey hunted them with a rifle.
Even during the early years of hunting spring turkey, outdoor publications such as “Outdoor Life” annually had articles about hunting spring gobblers with rifles rather than shotguns. One of the articles I remember was written back in the 1960’s and ‘70’s about hunting turkeys with a .222 rifle. The author wrote about handloading bullets backwards so the base exited the muzzle first, which then hopefully would not expand and destroy meat.
Over the years, I had many fun and sometimes interesting wild turkey hunts. One involved getting a telephone call from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department asking me to catch at turkey to be used in the “Lonesome Dove” television mini-series. Doing so turned out to be an ordeal.
Two old gobblers roosted on the same limb in a huge live oak on a ranch I was taking care of northwest of Uvalde. Starting weeks ahead of the time they needed the gobbler, live as it were, I started building a blind on the huge limb they roosted on. When the afternoon before they needed the gobbler arrived, I sat in the blind on the limb with a “J” hook catch-pole. I crawled into my blind long before dark and long before the gobblers came to roost. Once really dark I made my move. I snagged the nearest gobbler’s leg. He started flapping trying to escape, nearly dragged me out of the tree. I held on, stuffed him in a “croaker sack” and drove toward Austin near where they were filming that part of the mini-series. When I got there I proudly presented them with the live gobbler. Weeks of work had gone into his being taken alive. I was totally surprised when the head wrangler said, “Oh my goodness, a live turkey? We don’t want a live gobbler. We need him dead!” Now they tell me!
I wrote a chapter about taking that turkey, for the full story, which I named “Jubel” in my 1993 book, PEAR FLAT PHILOSOPHIES, published by Safari Press.
During my serious turkey hunting days, I hunted pretty much all over Texas with numerous known hunters, including old friends Jim Zumbo, long time hunting columnist for Outdoor Life and outdoor television celebrity, and Rick Lambert, who beyond being quite a turkey hunter happens to live in Lindale, Texas, where he and his beautiful wife, Beverly, raised their award winning country artist daughter.
Rick, like Zumbo, has taken all the various subspecies of wild turkeys; Rio Grande, Merriam, Eastern, Osceloa, Gould’s and Oscellated. When Rick speaks turkey one does well to listen, because gobblers certainly do. Even though I have not pursued spring turkeys now for several years, I have learned much from Zumbo and Lambert. One of the greatest things I’ve learned from them is to be patient, and it is far better to call too little than too much. Something I had also learned many years ago…
Thinking of those two, I am reminded of my dear friend J. Wayne Fears who for years wrote for the Wild Turkey Federations’ “Turkey Call” magazine. It was J. Wayne who once said, “A whole lot more turkeys have been killed by size 12 boots than shotgun pellets from a 12-gauge!” It was Fears who was hunting with a friend who shot a turkey, knocked it down, retrieved and properly tagged it with his one spring turkey tag from his license. On his way to meet others in his party to show off his gobbler, he realized his right boot lace had become untied. He laid his properly tagged gobbler down next to his safely empty 12-gauge shotgun, then he proceeded to tie his boot laces. So engaged, he heard a commotion where he had laid his gobbler. He turned just in time to see the gobbler stand up, shake himself, then fly away … turkey tag attached the gobbler’s leg. Before he could load his shotgun, the gobbler had flown out of sight.
I would love to have been around when another hunter shot that same gobbler and found him properly tagged with another hunter’s license tag.
Years ago I often hunted with the Realtree crew. Each year Bill Jordan would invite the current World Champion Turkey callers to hunt Rio Grande turkeys with him and the “Realtree Team” in Texas. I got to hang out and spend time with many of the best callers. The one thing I learned is that most competition turkey callers call to the judges, rather than to real turkey. Most of them wanted to impress the wild gobblers with all their calling abilities, calling to live gobblers the way they called to judges. They almost always “over-called” to the gobblers. Two of the world champion turkey callers who knew how to call to real live turkeys were Eddie Salter and Walter Parrott! Many of the others went home without a gobbler or resorted to hunting around “feeders”.
Bill Jordan and David Blanton brought several cameramen each year for our annual wild turkey and whitetail deer hunts. One of them was a youngster, just out of high school. His name was Michael Waddell and he was often assigned to film me when we were doing hunts in Texas. Michael was a true hunter, good at calling and also listening, wanting to learn what he could. Being of the same ilk, we got along extremely well and always had fun together and excellent success!
But there was this one time which I categorize in the “mishappenings” category. I knew where lived a particularly long bearded, extremely long-spurred gobbler in an area not over-run with other gobblers.
We approached the series of live oak mottes where the gobbler lived. Michael with call and camera, me with a brand-new special turkey shotgun! I hoped to shoot the big gobbler on camera for Realtree and get photos and story for several article assignments.
I sat down about ten-feet in front of Michael, who would do the calling and the filming. Prior to setting up we had placed a turkey decoy 20-steps in front of me.
Michael started calling. The gobbler immediately responded, coming closer each time he gobbled. Both Michael and I were ecstatic and waited with great anticipation. I positioned the shotgun on my knee, pointed directly at the decoy so there would be a minimum of movement when the gobbler appeared out of the brush. And soon he did. Gobbling, spitting and drumming, wing feathers scraping the sand, the gobbler strutted toward the decoy, “flaming” in the early morning sun. He was truly a sight to behold even if you did not like turkeys. Michael filmed, I sighted down the shotguns barrel equipped with a special turkey scope I had helped develop. Michael was to “putt” when he had gotten all the footage he wanted and I was supposed to shoot. The gobbler was totally mesmerized by Michael’s calling and the decoy.
Finally, I heard Michael “putt”, I pushed shotgun’s safety to fire, pulled the trigger. The gun did not go bang….
I knew I had loaded the shotgun’s barrel. Evidently I had a shell with a bad primer. Ever so carefully, quietly and cautiously I worked the gun’s pump-action, extracted the shell and shucked in another. Again the scope settle on the turkey’s head and neck. “Click” when the shotgun when I pulled the trigger a second time.
The gobbler momentarily looked our way then again proceeded to flog the decoy, as Michael continue to call and film. I again, as quietly as possible, pumped in another round, and again pulled the trigger. “Click” seemingly really loud this time.
The gobbler kept flogging the decoy and started to mount it. Again I bolted in my fourth and last No. 5 Turkey load shell. Surely this one would “go off”. I settled my somewhat shaking crosshairs on the turkey’s head and neck….
“Click!” I kept pointing the shotgun at the turkey hoping the gun would fire even if delayed.
It didn’t! Behind me I could hear young Michael snicker between calls.
At that point I quietly pumped out the last shell, grabbed the shotgun by the barrel, swung it around my head one time and threw it at the turkey. The surprised gobbler watched my shotgun fly just above his back, watching it hit the brush beyond him. He took one more look at the decoy, dismounted and walked away.
Michael nearly knocked over his camera tripod laughing, actually guffawing, out loud.
Mmmmhuhhn! Such can be hunting wild turkey. Always expect the unexpected!
