Fabricated Truths

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I love hearing lies true lies stories that, at best, bear a faint resemblance to what you sort-of remembered happening while out after our fat feathered fiends. They can bring out the best in us, as well as the worst that we don't even want to admit that we knew was in us. Please post on here your tales about what you went through to final wrap be able to your hands around the scaly legs of that big old bad Gobbler.



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In 1981, a coworker and I headed out one morning to try our hand on the local turkey tribes in the public hunting area surrounding the National Space Technology Laboratories in south Mississippi where we worked. We drove for a while and stopped on one of the shell roads and got out to just listen. After a little bit, we both turned and pointed in the same direction, "There he was!" We parked the truck and took out after him.

After some sneaking through the woods, we came up on a large recently plowed field and peeked out from behind a tree. There he stood strutting on the far side of the field. He was easy to see. He was so big, he looked like someone had left a wheelchair out in the dirt. My buddy and I eased over to the broken barbed wire fence, sat down and tried calling. He was so far away that we would yelp at him, see him gobble and 1 1/2 seconds later the sound would reach us. After a while, we started picking out the large moving dirt clods (hens) that he was posing for. We knew we were in for a long, difficult, and low percentage wait.

We started seeing that the hens were beginning to move across the field, possibly coming to gather up their two sisters over by that treeline. Whatever the reason, they were coming to us, and he was following. For 2 hours, they slowly made their way towards us, pecking along in the fresh soil. We could tell that the girls path was going to eventually put then right in our laps, but the Tom was about 40 yards behind them. We had to wait as long as we could so that Romeo could cut the distance down to where we could get a good shot at him. The hens made it to the fenceline about 10 yards to the right of my buddy and one of them turned and started right down the fence towards us. We knew that she was going to make us at any second. We watched the gobbler, then the hen, then the gobbler. Suddenly that hen jerked her head upright and she hammered out 3 sharps PUTTS. Waiting is now over, time to commence lift off. We both shot at the same time. and the patterns plowed a new furrow right over him, knocking him onto his back.

Here's when it got interesting. Back at the truck, my buddy had given me 2 of his 3" turkey shells for my 2 3/4" Ithaca. They seemed to chamber just fine and I gave it no more thought. When I shot, the longer expanded shell would not eject from the receiver, so my shooting basically was over until I could dig it out. I looked out in the field and saw the flopping gobbler raise his head. I have been here before and knew what was about to happen. I jumped up and my buddy says "Go get him, I can't move my legs." It turns out that he had not sat down next to a tree, but had been squatted down next to one for that whole 2 hours! Oh well, I'll do what I can. My legs were also asleep, but I was not going to give up on this bird without a fight! I hurdled the fence, and ran/loped/hobbled/hopped out across the field. The gobbler, who was wounded, but not fatally, flipped over onto his belly and started to stand up. I swapped ends with my gun, grabbed the barrel, swung back (remembering to keep my left arm straight and my head down all the way through the swing) and gave Romeo the finest 12 wood tee shot I have ever done. I connected with his head and down he went. (Ironically, when a gobblers beak is driven into the ground, his head is actually quite similar to a golf ball sitting on a tee. But I digress). I got a boot on his head and he was ours. I grabbed him by the legs and he commenced to flopping and beating the snot out of me. I didn't mind, I deserved it.

My buddy, who still could not move his legs at all, cheered from the sidelines for the successful joint effort that it took to bring him down. I walked over to him and he said "Man, what happened to your gun?" I looked down and saw that the stock on my shotgun was busted to pieces, probably from that par 5 shot from a minute ago. All my buddy wanted was the beard off of him, so he got that. As a side note, I miraculously found an Ithaca replacement stock sitting in a local gun shop a few months later so I was able to restore her just fine and still have her today.

I have said it before and I will say it again, I love this magnificent sport!



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I had taken several birds in previous years from a particular field that bordered a National Forest and I wanted to do it again. I eased into the corner of the field one afternoon to see if I could spot any turkeys out in it. I sat there all afternoon seeing nothing. At the close of legal shooting time, I stood up and kept looking. Suddenly a hen pitches up from just out of sight in front of me and lands in a tree on the edge of the field. Seconds later, a gobbler takes off from the same location and lands in the trees in the far corner of the field. He gobbled twice and I slipped out the backside.

For the entire drive back to the house, I set to studying as to how I could position myself to get a chance at this gobbler. I knew that he would sail out of the trees the next morning and land well out in the field, so setting up on the edges was a waste of time. I remembered that there were windrows pushed up in several locations throughout the field and craftily deduced that I might have a chance if I slipped out and set up in one under the cover of complete darkness the next morning.   

The next morning way before dawn, I eased out into the field, set up Britney, my hen decoy, and snuggled up in amongst the roots and thorns of a nearby windrow. Once daylight came, I heard the hen pitch out and land just the other side of the windrow from where I was. I heard the gobbler cut loose a few times and got to feeling pretty good about what might happen.

A quick picture of the field; 80 acres all told, golf course clean between the windrows with a deep drainage ditch running through the middle of it about 40 yards away.

As the sunlight finally reached the far treeline, I see something over there. I pull out my binoculars and spot the gobbler over there strutting in full glory in the thin strip of bright sunlight. I watched him engage and start fighting with another longbeard that had come into the field who had high hopes for debauchery with one of the members of the harem of hens in the field. My bird whupped his tail feathers thoroughly and chased him out of the field. Eventually the big bird started following a hen and a jake as they fed down towards the ditch and out of my line of sight. I was at a loss here. I felt that I could break out of my blind and probably move around and call that other gobbler to me in the woods given his present state of unrequited lust. Just about that time I spot the hen and jake feeding up the far side of the ditch coming towards me. I strain to see around the brush I'm sitting in when Bully McStrutter comes floating into view. I estimate that at his present path, the closest I can hope to get him would be about 43 yards away. I wait until he is as close as he is going to get and I yelp one time on my mouth call. He stops, takes a look at the gorgeousness of Britney and drops out of strut and walks over to the edge of the ditch.

I could not believe what I saw next.

He jumped over onto a log that had been pushed into the ditch, wobbled a bit to regain his balance and then hopped onto the bank on my side! He stood there a moment, oomphed back out into strut and started sashaying over to commence wooing this new hot mama. Once he got even with me, I cutt at him loudly, he stopped and threw up his head at attention and was promptly sent off to the loving arms of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

I slowly walked over to him, knealed down, laid my hand on his body and with tears in my eyes, thanked God for this magnificent animal that he has given us to hunt in this most awesome season of the year.

Just to make sure, I hung him on a limb by his spurs on the walk back to the truck, noticed that the wildflowers and all of creation had gotten so much more brightly colored than they had been all season.




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