Close calls

[FullChoke]

Turkey hunting has recognized inherent dangers in the spring woods that we work around. They may range from unexpected interactions with animals to being mistaken for game by other hunters. You get the idea. We all want to be safe, but there are times when we find ourselves in situations that we have not planned for that have the potential for real harm. The more aware that we are about these problems, the better prepared we can be to avoid them.

What pickles have you found yourself in while hunting turkeys that you would care to reveal? By sharing them here, we are made aware. Forewarned is forearmed.

FullChoke

[FullChoke]

I always run up on a snake or two through the course of a season, nothing really unusual given that it is Mississippi in the spring, but these 3 Musketeers were practically invisible in the shade on the dam of an old stock pond that I found out on public land. For scale, the body on that Kardashian sister in the foreground was almost as big around as my calf. All 3 looked as fierce as tigers, but were actually quite calm, polite and non aggressive. We parted ways civilly, none the worse for the experience.

[FullChoke]

I have had two close calls that could have very easily ended fatally. Both were on my way to the woods and both involved other vehicles.

One morning I was driving to a spot in Bienville National Forest that I intended to hunt. I was cruising along in a sleepy state and was in a windy section of the road just before I got to a small town. From somewhere out in the darkness in front of me I saw a brief glint of light. Was that real? Suddenly I saw another flash of light and realized that there was a old pickup truck sitting dead in my lane with no lights on at all. I whipped my vehicle into the other lane on squealing tires and just missed the truck. I glanced in the cab as I came by at 45 mph and saw the outline of a man sitting motionless behind the wheel. Moments later I got to the small town and against all odds, there was a police officer sitting in his cruiser at a convenience store. I pulled over, told him what just happened and where the truck was. He lit up the night and took off in a shower of gravel to try and get this individual off of the road before the next vehicle came up on him. I can only hope that he was able to get to the scene before someone else did.

Another time in this same area I was almost to the spot that I was going to park for a hunt that morning. I was coming up a small rise in the road and saw car headlights approaching me from the other side of the hill. Just as I was about to crest the hill. the other headlights appear and they are right in front of me in my lane. I had no where to go to try and avoid this head-on collision. At the last second the other driver suddenly jerks her car back into her lane, misses me and never even hits her brakes.  Shortly after that happened, as I was crawling under a barbed wire fence in that cool, gray, foggy morning, I stopped. For a minute, I just laid there face down and looked at the grass, leaves and dirt with the full realization that I came very, very close to not being able to look at grass, leaves and dirt ever again, if events had simply gone differently that morning.

Close calls of any kind can scare you, they can unnerve you, or they can deliver to you the revelation of the precious and delicate life thread that we balance on and that there are unseen agents working on our benefit all around us.

FullChoke   

[3seasons]

I've got quite a few from hunting public land and Private in SW MS but some of the major ones:

As I was bowhunting and slipping through the edge of a greenfield on the edge of the MS River I felt a thud on the side of my calf on my left leg.  When I looked down I was staring at a huge cotton mouth that was preparing to strike again.  Well I pulled all sorts of muscles as I jumped away from this snake and created a whole new language. After I regained my composure and reassured myself that my snake boots hat done their job I found a nice 3' stick and took care the of problem. He was right at 50" total and was about the size of my lower leg.   Hunting down here in the swamps snake boots are a must.  30min later I had 2 longbeards strutting in front of me so the day turned out pretty good.

I've had coyotes attack my decoys and bobcats stalk them  not really a close call but cool

(Private land) Once, I was set up in the edge of a field an hour before daylight and about daybreak I hear something and I see in the dim light some turkeys about 80yds away.  I thought to myself that looks like decoys. Well is stand up out of the blind I had made that was overlooking 4 hens a jake and a strutter decoy(first time I ever tried all that) and whistle and holler a little. I had to walk over to the guy, with birds gobbling in the back ground, and he got upset with me.  I politely asked him if he knew where the property line was and he popped off that yes he knows where his line is.  I then asked then why are you 300yds over on our property. He starts explaining to me that the birds have moved over on us this year and that he was hunting them since they are usually on him. I told him yes they are usually on you and I always stop at the line and never cross it so why should he cross it.  He finally moved but I have no doubt he would have shot my decoys once they were visible.  I did get on 3 birds about an hour later. 

(Same private land and same guy) I get to a place where a bird has been roosting in the prior weeks well before daybreak, while sitting there in the dark I start to hear someone hooting on the east side of the property. As day breaks (6am) I'm still hearing him hoot and I hear a faint gobble as far as I can hear. While this is going on I haven't heard a sound around me. This goes on till about 6:45 and I can't stand it anymore, so I break and run to the east end of our land to see if I can hear the poacher or hear the bird gobbling. It was about 5min later the bird gobbled down in a bottom from me. So if figured what the heck I'm going after him. I made a semicircle and got on a ridge to the side of where I thought he was. I called and he gobbled. I hit the deck and got ready, I called again and then I heard another call to my left. It wasn't a hen but it was another hunter that was set up about 70yds to my left. I was the only person hunting that day  so I knew he was poaching. The bird kept gobbling and I started to cut, the other hunter called back, this goes on for 30min until I see the bird fly down off the roost at 7:40( he was roosted in a tree that was in the bottom so it sounded like he was on the next ridge) He lit 40yds from me, when he hit the ground the other hunter started to call more, I just started purring, the bird walked on a line to me and started to go into strut. I wanted to watch him for a little while but I didn't want my intruder to mess me up either so I shot the bird.
I broke and ran on the shot and as I ran up the next ridge I see a decoy and a hunter sitting beside a tree. BUSTED again. I had caught him last year also. Some people. We had a nice long talk and I finally got him to understand that it is not a good thing to keep poaching.
LOL I got him to take a pic of me with the bird, the pic is a little blurry, he was shaking a little.
The bitter sweet part is, While I was able to call in and take a truly beautiful Red barred bird First I've ever taken with these colors. My taxidermist said the colors were rare. I wasn't able to fully enjoy the hunt because of some bonehead that crossed the line. And on the other hand I know that's one less bird that I'll be able to chase in the future

(Private) I could hear someone hooting, then a jake gobbled, next thing I hear is a crow call coming closer and closer. I'm up on a ridge overlooking a bottom and he sets up in that bottom about 300yds from the fence on my side. Soon a couple of long beards start gobbling and hit the ground and they are coming right to me. All of a sudden they tuck tail and run, there are birds flying over me and birds running away, it was my soon to be new acquaintance "slipping" through the woods. I let him top the ridge I was on then go off the other side, not wanting to get shot. I made a loop around him and he never knew I was there. We talked for a little while then he left going back to his side of the fence. Funny part of the whole thing was he ratted out 2 other guys that poach the place also, one of which I already knew about. 

I caught 7 different poachers in 3 years on this place.  I've had birds shot out from under me and had to run them down.  People just don't care around here.

I could go on and on about close calls with poachers.  It adds an extra element of excitement when they are involved.

Me and my dad called up two that thought we were their partner, after we saw him run off and start crowing like a rooster. Guess it was their warning sign but the other two didn't hear it. We actually called the bird off of them and after I shot they hooted so we hooted back, 2min later they high fived me and was all happy until I lowered my mask and my dad stepped out of the bushes. 

(Public) I've had people run on top of me I've had people slip in-between me and the bird and shoot it when it closed the distance.  I haven't but I have 2 friends that had their decoys shot while hunting.

I apologize for the rant Its pretty crazy some of the stuff that goes on. I've got tons of stuff like that

[FullChoke]

That sounds like there were 7 poachers that had close calls. You can never know how desperately someone caught poaching redhanded by a landowner will react, possibly with violence.

I had a newbie stalk me (or the turkey sounds I was making) on public land years ago. Fortunately he was wearing blue jeans that I was able to spot through the woods pretty easily. The ensuing conversation with him was stern and terse. No harm, no foul.

I was hunting with a roommate one afternoon while in college. He went one direction up the creek and I went the other way. I came back to the truck a little early and wandered down the side road to see if I could get one to gobble at me from the roost. I mustered up the best lusty, throaty double gobble I could generate to try and induce a response. Crickets answered me back. Oh well, I turned and started back to the truck and caught movement in the road. It was my roommate putting the opportunistic feeder sneak on that gobbler he just heard. I ducked behind a tree and let loose another gobble, you know, to fool with him and I was certain that he wouldn't buy that rendition. I peaked back around the tree and he was on all fours sliding over to the ditch for cover. Realizing that I had to show my hand, and quickly, I cawed like a crow then called out his name. We laughed about it afterwards, but I realized what a boneheaded move that really was.

[Sand Man]

I can't think of many close calls turkey hunting other than doing something stupid while in a rush ie running the boat without a lifejacket on or having a minor fender bender that could have been avoid if not in a hurry.

However, I could write a book on duck hunting close calls.  Looking back a few of us are lucky to be alive.  I have a very high respect for swift moving water as well as airboats!

[xarcher]

I almost fell asleep once.

[FullChoke]

I almost fell asleep once.

I have used this more than once and killed turkeys because of it. I call lt My Secret Tactic.

True story.

FC

[paintbrush]

 I would say I've never had a really close call unless that rattler at 5 feet out in SD counts. I didn't see him until he rattled by an old badger hole. I went a couple feet sideways on that one! Amazing what a 3" turkey load does to a rattler at about 10 feet! Have orders to shoot ever rattler we see out there in SD from the rancher who lets us hunt his land. I've only seen that 1 in 15 years of hunting there, but i do carry a dove load on me now when out there hunting. They will strike the cattle and can get them very sick he said.

[cramerhunts]

Can't think of any close calls during turkey season. I consider myself fortunate with as much public land as I hunt and I'm happy to be able to contribute to a thread for once.

[FullChoke]

Certainly close calls but not necessarily threatening. I have had a number of coyotes within 10 yards huntin' that turkey dinner they knew was right over here. I also had a BIG male bobcat slip in on me once, but he miscalculated the locale.

Then there was this one particular morning on public land. I had put out the decoys one morning and had a group of 6 does and yearlings came over to investigate the stuck up strangers. The deer eventually filed off and I was able to retrieve that dekes and ease up a fire lane looking for something with feathers. I eventually came up on a gas pipeline and peeked down the line and there was the group of deer that I had seen earlier. I decided to try something with them. Since I was still in the shadows, I took my gloved hand and held it up on top of my head and stuck it out so that my silhouette looked like the ear on another deer. I started casually strolling up to them and they finally saw me. Those crazy deer let me walk up to within 20 yards of them before they walked into the woods on the other side of the pipeline. My body language that they read was completely relaxed and nonthreatening and they reacted in a like manner.

I headed back to the truck down the pipeline and came up on a nice deer crossing on a ridge. I stopped to look it over and caught movement down the line of something heading towards me. It was a young bobcat cruising the pipeline. He would ease along for about 25 yards, sit down and scan the grass, listening for telltale rustling from a rodent. I watched him do this several times until he was directly opposite me in the pipeline. He sat down and scanned the grass and at one point actually looked pretty hard at the bottom of that stump (my boots). He eventually moved on off and I slipped away the other direction.

FC

[3bailey3]

Mine would be at a local WMA that full choke had told me he had heard some birds, I checked it after a morning hunt, mid day and heard a bunch of birds but could not work them. So the next morning I had a plan, get there early, I knew where they would end up but I needed to be in early. As I got out of my truck I heard gravel popping as another truck was headed down the road, I heard it stop close by doors open and then loud music followed by wheels spinning. I thought this is not going to be good, loaded my gun and stepped to the back of my truck. They passed by but slammed on brakes and turned around and pulled within a few feet of my truck. It was four kids that had been out all night on a school night, I stood there watching to see what they would do, finally they pulled of but went about 100 yards down the road and blared music, I stood there and watched it get daylight and I finally said go hunt or guard the truck, I hunted and killed my third bird  of the season that morning. Public land deep in rural woods can be scary!