From Demoralization to Utter Satisfaction

I’m sure there are a few Turkey hunters here that can appreciate the demoralization generated from a Wild Turkey encounter when they bust you.

Wild Turkeys that were once native to my province of Ontario disappeared for about a 100 years until a restocking program was initiated in the 80’s. Today we have over 100k birds residing in Ontario. When limited hunting was eventually allowed a Turkey course has to be taken before you could purchase a license and try your luck at acquiring one.

Okay with that behind me and numerous hours of learning what I needed to know to hopefully be successful at it I began my career of Turkey hunting. For the first few years I went through what I call a demoralization period of being unsuccessful. Turkeys would be seen out of range or I would catch a glance of one darting away from me when I moved from my position. I often swore that when a Turkey spotted me it would wait for me to do something wrong and then give me a fleeting glance of it darting away to demoralize me.

During the 3rd season while visiting Pete my hunting partner to hunt Turkey he was going to educate me on some finer points as he was becoming really productive getting his 2-bird limit. First thing he instructed me to do was put away my call that put a puzzling look on my face where he responded “That’s what I said”. “Tomorrow you are going to go to that blind we rebuilt during that thunderstorm a few years ago and wait”. Keep in mind Pete and I enjoyed playing a practical joke on each other now and then so I was a little leery at first to believe him. He then proceeded to detail events that should happen and I should get a crack at a nice bird. Here I began to wonder if Pete had become a psychic and could foretell the future.

Okay I did what I was instructed to do the following morning and patiently sat in the blind. Sure enough at roughly the predicted time some hens came casually strolling through my location feeding the bean field as they went by me. Then I caught sight of what first appeared as a snowball bouncing along the inside edge of the woods and sharply turned into the field in front of me. It was one nice Tom who immediately went into strutting mode to attract a hen from the group that was almost beside me about 10yds away. The hens ignored the Tom as they went out of my line of sight.

Now the Tom being persistent kept coming right after them, he would move about 5yds pause and strut. Doing so he would eventually come into range and that he did. At about 25yds he paused and lifted his head to see the hens. With a perfect head shot posture I let her rip. That bird when hit leaped up and did a back flip before hitting the ground dead. Oh there was the aftermath wing beating on the ground but the bird was now mine. Talk about a feeling of satisfaction that overcame me. The bird weighted 23lbs and had 1-1/8’ spurs.

I don’t mind admitting I had help to acquire my first wild turkey and the satisfaction felt made all past demoralizations fade away. I told Pete when we met up (he also had harvested a bird) that everything unfolded as he described the evening before as if choreographed. He responded that all his previous time spent on the farm allowed him to observe the birds and simply pattern their movements that would be predictable for a short time. He also gave up calling after the first few weeks of the season as other hunters were educating the local birds from their sloppy calling exploits.

He then took at look at my bird and congratulated me on my success. I in turn thanked him for making my day on this hunt.


Ed