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Part IV: Calling & Decoying Turkeys
By Dave Richey
CADILLAC - A soft, seductive hen turkey yelp drifts through the spring woods, and just over a ridge, a Tom thunders out a gobble that shakes the ground and makes the hunter realize this is worth getting up hours before dawn, day after day, just to be here and to enjoy the wildness of a strutting gobbler.
Another soft yelp tempts the gobbler, and he again rattles the woods with the deep-throated double-gobble of a bird ready to mate with the hen. Mating is far too subtle a word for a gobbler and hen; rape comes much closer, and there are no whispered endearments either. Breeding is a savage affair.
This gobbler was playing a cat-and-mouse game with the hunter who was trying to woo him to the two jakes and a hen decoy 25 yards away in the middle of a wooded clearing. This sultan of the swamp turned to move away as if the hen wouldn't come to him but another soft and plaintive yelp and purr changed his mind, again.
Then the glowing white head of the strutting gobbler could be seen moving warily through the woods, circling the decoys, and looking intently at the jake decoys. It circled 20 yards off my right elbow, kept moving around my set-up, and there was just enough breeze to make the decoys move. The bird gobbled directly behind me, and I decided to ride it out. There was no need to call; the bird would continue to circle or decide to commit himself.
The gobbler approached slowly, cautiously, each step a study in wariness. It was now 30 yards away, drumming and spitting, his wing tips dragging the ground, and his head was thrust up and out as he roared again. He took two steps closer to the decoys, gobbled again and I shot him at the junction of the head and neck with a 12-gauge magnum load of No. 5 copper-plated shot.
Cont. p.2 |
