THE PLAN
" A goal without a plan is just a wish"
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
I had a plan for the opening morning of turkey season. I needed a good plan, given the experience of the opening morning of youth season the week before. My good son, Cole, and I entered the woods with that excited shiver of anticipation that all real turkey hunters experience on opening morning. At dawn, we heard every bird vocalization possible in north Mississippi—except, of course, our beloved Meleagris gallopavo silvestris. Disappointing, to say the least—especially for my young compadre, who, I was aghast to learn, had bragged to some of his school pals that his dad was the best turkey hunter in the world and that he would be killing his fourth turkey for sure on opening morning. Cole is an academic scholar, but it seems that his ESP skills are woefully inadequate. Still, we made the best of our day in the woods and genuinely enjoyed each other's company. Cole was now 15 years old, and our hunting experience had ever so gradually evolved from a father-son relationship to one of good hunting buddies.
Opening morning found me on the same tract of private ground that Cole and I had hunted on the opening morning of youth season. Instead of hunting the nice hardwood ridges we had struck out on the previous week, my plan was to go to the back end of the property, where the terrain is comprised of low-lying pastures and wooded fence lines. I positioned myself in the back corner of the property, and as dawn arrived, I found my hand grasping my Harrison's Hootin' Stick. The magical chorus of gobbles echoing out both in front and behind my position caused me to slip my treasured owl hooter back into its position in my possibles bag without blowing a note. I guessed it to be two groups of five to seven gobblers gobbling on the roost. I quickly decided to set up on the closest-sounding group, which was behind me and also just off the property.
I set up in a little hidey-hole I fashioned just inside the wood line, looking into the field. Once I determined they had left the roost, I offered up a four-note yelp on a mouth call made just for me by my good friend James Harrison. The best I could tell, the entire herd of gobblers answered back.
"All right," I thought to myself, "I am in business now. They'll be out in front of me in this field in no time!"
It was about then that I heard the unmistakable, scratchy, whiny yelps of what I was sure was a Bass Pro Shops box call.
"Dang it, man," I thought. "I've got company."
I did give some slight consideration to moving, but I was on the right side of the fence, and I was sure those gobblers were headed my way. Besides, whoever those pilgrims were manhandling that box call sounded terrible, and there was no way those gobblers were going their way.
It wasn't long after those thoughts entered my head that the loud report of a shotgun startled me off my cushion.
"Well, I'll be damned," I thought. "Those pilgrims must have gotten lucky and set up on some tone-deaf gobblers."
It was time to implement a new plan. I gathered up my gear and headed in the direction of the other group of gobblers I had heard earlier in the morning.
As I was hot-footing it over to my new hunting ground, my mind raced to formulate a Plan B. On the way, I heard a few more gobbles, which helped me pinpoint their location and allowed me to decide where I should be situated for the upcoming duel. I settled in against a large post oak located on a wooded fence line on the top of a hill. I could see over 300 yards to my left but only 75 yards or so to my right. Neither direction provided a straightaway view since the terrain was very uneven, and there were small patches of woods dotted here and there.
I pulled out my "Mother Lode" slate, made for me by my good friend Joe Slaton, and, with a purpleheart striker, produced a string of sweet-sounding yelps. Several turkeys gobbled a good ways off to my left, and one gobbled less than 100 yards to my right."Hey now," I thought. "This is just how I like it—in the middle of the gobblers and no squawking box calls to contend with."
I was sure the close gobbler on my right was on his way, but as the minutes ticked by, he became much less vocal than the faraway turkeys to my left. I continued calling sporadically on my trusted slate, but after a little over an hour, the gobbles grew quiet, and nothing responded to the sweet hen noises I was making. I sat there and waited patiently, as good turkey hunters do.
After 30 minutes or so of me enjoying the morning and generally being lost in my thoughts, I slipped a mouth call in and nonchalantly cranked out a few yelps before I got up to leave.
GOBBLE!!
He was close—just over a rise in the field I was looking at.
I had miscalculated the speed of his advance, and before I knew it, there he was, all blowed up and looking right at me—with my gun on my knee but not on my shoulder. He continued toward me, still in strut and taking two or three fast steps at a time, only stopping to strut along the way—all the while with those laser-beam eyes of his drilling a hole through my chest.
I began to move my gun to my shoulder like molasses in the wintertime. It must have taken a full two minutes. By the time I was ready, with the scope on his wattles, my thumb decided he was close enough, and without any prompting from my consciousness, it involuntarily clicked the safety off.
BOOM!!!
He went down, and I tore my britches on the cattle gap racing out to put my foot on his neck.
As I stood there, waiting for him to stop beating my legs with his wings, I remembered to look up and thank the Lord for His gifts of nature and for the success of Plan B.
You've always got to have a plan, and, as this morning proved—most times, you need two.
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