Straining to look through the binoculars, I could see the tops of two tail fans as the gobblers strutted back and forth. With hens feeding around them, they were as unconcerned with the world surrounding them as an eastern wild turkey ever could be. From the thick cedars only a hundred and fifty yards away, my father and I watched them. I was nine years old and had yet to kill a gobbler. That particular morning we'd been beat once again. These turkeys seemed to have super natural powers. Although they would never roost in, or even adjacent to the vast virgin hardwood ridge, they always had a way of getting up there before we did. Once they got there, they were safe. The ridge was wide open, like hunting turkeys in the middle of a field. They could see two hundred yards in any direction and had a commanding perspective of the dark cedar thickets that surrounded the ridge at lower elevations.
Those turkeys could thank the former occupants of that ridge for their de facto safe space. Logging roads and wagon trails, sometimes only visible when viewed from just the right angle, scarred the hill sides and ridge saddles. Stone walls, stacked by hand more than a hundred years prior, slowly sank into the forest floor. Groves of yucca plants and ornamental flowers serve as regenerating traces of the homesteads that once dotted the local hill tops. However, unlike most of the surrounding countryside, this particular ridge was never logged in the 20th century. Because, at the very peak of the ridge sat a small antebellum cemetery. Most of the markers are too old to read. Those that can be read date to the late 1800s. The bodies interned there lived during and through the war that forever changed the landscape we were walking on. A ground ivy kept the cemetery groomed. The giant oak and hickory trees gave it shade in the summer and drowned out any competition from the mid story. My father would describe it as "open as a church." Indeed, standing there it reminded me of standing in a cathedral - as close to life, death, and God as one can be.
The next morning, we were determined to beat them to the punch. Cold and clear, we started our hike in the black of night. Winding our way down through the cedar glades, crossing a small rainfed creek, and climbing back up the side of the ridge and through the cedar thicket, we finally emerged in the cathedral of hardwoods. As we caught our breath, warming to hues of orange and green filled the sky from the east. We settled into the base of a big oak tree and awaited the inevitable chorus of turkey sounds from the woods around us. Instead, silence. It was a textbook perfect morning for turkeys to gobble and even well after sunrise, we hadn't heard a peep. No gobbling. No turkeys. I couldn't help but wonder if what we'd witnessed the day before was but an apparition, a ghost, clearly there until I reached out to touch it and it was gone.
...
More than twenty years have passed since my initial hunts on that ridge. Every time I'm in the area I can't help but be drawn back to it. Turkeys are always roosted in the hollows beneath that ridge and seemingly every morning that I'm not on that ridge, there's a gobbler up there sporadically shock gobbling while safely strutting for his hens. When it comes to turkeys, I guess I'm a sucker for being the underdog.
After my roost hunt ended with the gobbler meandering away onto private ground with his own harem of live hens, I fell right back to my old ways like a tire sliding into a slick muddy rut. There was no need in fighting it. I started my hike towards the old cemetery. As I crossed the old creek bed, I pulled out my owl hooter. He cut me off halfway into the first sequence. A smile crept across my face as dug the facemask and gloves out of my vest and started easing up the side of the ridge. The cedars are more open now, not as thick as they used to be. Moss covers the ground and helped silence my footsteps. Halfway up the ridge I stopped to catch my breath – another gobble. At that point, I was certain he was standing in the cemetery. I eased closer. Before I got too close to risk being seen I stopped to listen again. His gobble had become quieter. He was moving off the back side of the ridge. I made my final approach. Right on the edge of the big timber I waited for one more gobble. It was further than the last. He was now moving down the opposite side of the ridge away from me. Cresting the ridge, I stood beside a giant oak and let out some soft yelps. No response. I walked up a little closer and called again. Nothing. I knew he had to be within two hundred yards, likely following hens. I scratched in the leaves and called some more. A hen replied with a short string of yelps. I cut back at her and he gobbled in response. I eased along the ridge cutting and yelping. No response.
I'd have to wait them out hoping that their own curiosity would call them to me. I knew that setting up in the wide open, early spring, hardwood ridge top was a sure-fire way to get spotted outside of gun range, so I used the lustful gobbler's decision to leave his safe space to my advantage. Easing down to the edge of the cedars, I found a tree to sit against where I'd have better cover and be away from where they had heard me calling. My confidence was building as this chess game was working itself out in my favor.
Soft clucking caught my ear and drew my eyes to two hens as they approached in search of the missing hen they had heard calling. I clucked back softly and they continued their approach – looking, clucking, and easing up towards me through the shade of the cedars. I could hear drumming in the background. Eventually, the hens got to within twenty yards and I had yet to see the gobbler. The drumming continued. I yelped louder and started cutting, the hens became nervous, trying to piece together the competing stories coming from their ears and their eyes. The gobbler let out a thunderous gobble from just out of sight. Immediately, the hens turned and walked back to their date.
The drumming stopped.
Check mate – my king was toppled.
A front moved in mid-day and thunderstorms consumed the county. I napped and caught up on some computer work back at camp. The forecast called for the rain to stop at four. I parked my truck and started the hike back to the cemetery. The win loss record was in the gobbler's favor, but all I had to do was win once. It was cold and dreary. A low fog enveloped the damp woods. It was dead calm. I approached the ridge and called softly. Slipping quietly over the wet leaves and moss, I got to where I wanted to sit for the evening. Nestled down in the cedars, the edge of the open hardwoods was about forty yards from me and the cemetery was another hundred yards into the hardwoods beyond that. I wanted to make that gobbler come looking for me and to confirm the presence of a live hen, he would have to expose himself within gun range.
The day was April 6th – and I realized it was the 160th anniversary of the battle of Shiloh. 23,000 American casualties. Undoubtedly, there were men on that battle field that would have much rather been easing through the woods, searching for a turkey on that spring day in Tennessee. During that fateful day, Confederate troops thought they had the upper hand. Unbeknownst to them, that night the Union encampments were reinforced with new troops and the tide turned quickly the next day. Although this evening I wasn't within ear-shot of the Shiloh battle field, without question and at various times, gunfire from the Civil War could have been heard from where I was sitting. It wasn't all that long ago.
Confident that due to the weather I wouldn't be firing up a gobbler this afternoon, I felt that I could, at the very least, hear the turkeys fly up to roost at dark. So I waited, consumed in thought, when my mind was suddenly wiped clear. A gobble. Hard to believe but unmistakable. It sounded like he was just on the other side of the cemetery. I yelped back. No response. After another fifteen minutes I called again. He gobbled, still in the same spot – his safe space. I waited through another twenty minutes of silence. A crow cawed above him and he let a gobble slip out. It's hard to say for sure but it sounded like he might have been a little closer. Another fifteen minutes of silence passed. I figured by this point he wasn't going to get fired up and I likely wasn't going to get a crack at him, but hoped to hear him fly up. Until then, I decided to stay on the ready just in case he was easing towards me all the while.
My gun, oriented towards the last gobble I heard, was resting on my knee with the butt of the stock at my armpit. If I laid eyes on him, in one smooth motion I could have the bead on his neck. Surprisingly I heard footsteps coming towards me from the hardwoods. A shadow appeared easing along the edge of the cedars. My nerves calmed instantaneously when I realized it was three deer. They walked right up to me and were less than twenty yards away before they smelled a rat and went bounding down the hill flagging their tails. I eased my gun down off my knee and in a flash the gobbler took off on a fast trot. He must have been walking along behind the deer and being distracted, I never saw him approaching. I shouldered the gun and clucked at him. In the end, it was curiosity that sealed his fate as he stopped to take one last look.
