by Kyle Wright
Like most hunters, I’ve had my fair share of intense moments in the turkey woods, including the first time I ever laid eyes on a longbeard.
Like most hunters, I’ve had my fair share of intense moments in the turkey woods, including the first time I ever laid eyes on a longbeard. Dad and I had been calling all morning and we hadn’t heard a single gobble. We were walking back to the truck, hanging our heads and licking our wounds, when we heard a bird behind us. We turned just in time to see not one but two toms launch themselves into the air. Dad filled the sky with lead but didn’t cut a feather. I never so much as shouldered my shotgun. When he asked me why I didn’t shoot, I just shook my head. My first fleeting glimpse of a wild turkey had completely paralyzed me.
Then there was the late afternoon hunt a few years back when three mangey coyotes loped in and locked eyes on my brand new decoy. Remembering what I’d just paid for that piece of plastic, the decision to pivot from turkey hunting to predator hunting was an easy one, and every shell in my shotgun that day was well spent.
And, of course, who could forget the morning I dumped one too many scoops of Folgers into the coffee pot? I was trying to remember something I needed to do before I left the house and simply lost count. I poured myself a to go cup and polished it off just as I pulled through the gate at my hunting property. Before I could put the truck in park, it became obvious that I was going to have to answer nature’s call before I called to a bird. By the time I unbuckled my seatbelt, Mother Nature had quit calling and commenced to screaming at the top of her lungs. I had just found the perfect spot to answer her call when I remembered what I’d forgotten to do before I left the house – restock my turkey vest with a new roll of toilet paper. Lost a good sock that day.
But maybe the most pressure packed moment I’ve ever had hunting longbeards came this last spring. It was late in the season, and I was running late for an afternoon hunt. So late, in fact, that I was still pulling on my camouflage as I grabbed a decoy and a turkey chair, jammed a couple of shells into my twelve gauge, and hustled downhill to the edge of a rye field. I planted my decoy in the dirt and then collapsed into my turkey chair, already sweating. As soon as I caught my breath, I made my first sounding call and to my surprise, five birds ran straight in from my right. In the lead was a bearded hen, and hot on her heels were four jakes. The hen had the longest beard in the bunch. While she was busy introducing herself to my decoy, the jakes hung back and gobbled at each other. When my decoy didn’t respond to the hen’s handshake, the bearded lady took offense and started pecking. The jakes continued to gobble. When the hen tired of her pecking, she moved off to my left, dragging the gang of noisy teenagers with her. I had hoped that all their gobbling would bring a longbeard into range, but when nothing else showed, I started justifying in my mind why it would be okay for me to shoot one of those mouthy jakes.
Before the season ever opened, I promised myself that due to the nationwide decline in the wild turkey population, jakes were going to be off limits. I have absolutely no problem with anyone else shooting a jake, but I’ve shot plenty of them over the years and have no need to shoot another. Besides, if the population numbers really were as low as studies suggested, I wanted to give every young bird in the county the chance to grow up and multiply. But as the season was winding down and my trigger finger was twitching, I started to think that maybe I’d been a bit hasty making that promise. I decided that if one of the jakes gave me another shot opportunity, I might ought to take it.
Having made up my mind, I clucked once. The bearded hen immediately snapped her head around and took a step in my direction. Predictably, the jakes behind her gobbled. One more soft call sealed the deal. She was coming back, alright, and those jakes were coming with her.
I steadied the shotgun on my knee and readied myself for a shot, but the hen surprised me and strolled right past my decoy. The jakes hung up then, as confused as I was as to why she hadn’t stopped, and when they hung up, so did she. So, I had a bearded hen to the right of my decoy and four jakes to the left, all within twenty yards. I was trying to determine which of the jakes had the bushiest beard when I caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye. Thinking that a longbeard might be joining the party after all, I cut my eyes over my shoulder just in time to see a blur of black and white rolling down the hill, straight for my setup.
The skunk rolled to a stop only inches behind my chair and started nosing through the leaves, totally oblivious to my presence. I immediately discarded the notion that I’d shoot one of the jakes as I was nearly certain that a blast from my shotgun would trigger a blast from the skunk. Then I started worrying that the hen would yelp and one of those fool jakes would sound off again. As close as they were, I was afraid that even a gobble might detonate the stink bomb behind me. I forced myself to freeze and then thought of every trick in the book to slow my heart rate and steady my breathing, but as the leaves behind me continued to rustle and the bearded hen stared a hole straight through me, I tensed up tighter than a bow string.
I relaxed a bit when the hen lost interest and turned to go. After another minute, the jakes ran to catch up with her and not long after that, the rustling behind my chair stopped. I was just about to stretch out my sore muscles when the thought struck me that maybe the skunk had simply fallen asleep. Another ten minutes of tension followed. Finally, when I could stand it no longer, I summoned what was left of my strength and somersaulted out of my low slung turkey chair, flinging it behind me. I spun around, raised my gun and braced myself for a shootout, but there was nothing there. Apparently, the skunk had slunk off after all. I took a deep breath and then stood up for a proper stretch. That’s when I spooked off the longbeard that had snuck in to see what all the fuss was about.
There was still half an hour of daylight left, but I went ahead and gathered up my gear and walked back to the truck with a smile on my face. I was going home empty handed. And I’d never been more grateful.
