I have the most wonderful creek bottom for a hunting venue you could imagine, but I haven't taken a bird from there in more than a decade, and I've frankly stopped trying. For the first 5 years on this farm, I regularly beat my head against a wall down there, but I had almost zero payoff. What I found was that the birds invariably pitched down and went right up the sides of the surrounding hills. Being at the bottom, I had to chase them uphill the rest of the morning.
If I had to guess why this was so, I would point to the fact that the hills on either side were tall, and the sun never showed itself until midday. It was always cold down in that bottom, and I suspect the turkeys wanted to get up on the ridgetops and warm up. Lord knows I froze down there on many occasions. I began to have success with these birds when I stayed up on top of the ridge and waited for them. For the past decade, most of my best birds have come from these Pity Creek birds as they come to the top to strut and feed
I said "almost" no luck. Mooseboy and I did manage to nail a jake down there one time. The bit of luck was happening on one of the most fascinating phenomena I've ever witnessed outdoors. The bottom of Pity Creek is fairly tight. The creek runs year round, and there's less than 50 yards of bottom land. Most of it is on my side of the creek. On either side the hillsides are filled with fairly mature second growth oaks. The turkeys roost in those oaks, and the number of gobblers can get substantial. So much so that on a few occasions, I have heard waves of gobbling go up and down that creek as gobbler sets off gobbler sets off gobbler and the impetus flows back and forth. It gets so the waves travelling in different directions meet and interact, much like ripples on a pond. All this happens in the extended gloom of this dark bottom, so there is nothing to see, but the gobbling is so loud and so focused that you feel it. It is not a regular thing either. For all my trips down there, I have only heard it a few times, and only once when I was at the bottom, in the middle of it.
Back when I was on the T&TH forum, I mentioned this phenomena, and I found one other fellow that had heard this. He, like me, thought it was an incredible blessing. However, I don't think he had much luck hunting his gobblers as I did I.
