A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, or in the case of spring gobbler hunting … more than two in most cases. With our local toms progressively getting less vocal each year – arguably the result of increased hunting pressure and being stalked by coyotes – hearing a tom gobble on its roost at dawn doesn’t translate to an easy call-in and a bird in hand. For once that tom flies down, you may never hear it gobble again that day.
Whatever the reason, our local toms are just gobbling less and less with each passing year. What this means is that the classic spring turkey calling and hunting experience is changing. Time was, if you went spring gobbler hunting, you expected to hear vocalization by the toms, at least occasionally, giving away their location and giving the hunter the opportunity to set up and try to call that gobbler in. When toms don’t gobble, it becomes a dice roll since the hunter can’t be certain where they are and risks spooking them when he moves to look for a receptive gobbler.
In the past three or four years, the majority of the spring toms I’ve shot came in silent. If they gobbled at all, it was while they were some distance away. But once they decided to investigate the hen calls they heard, they shut up and literally came sneaking in, often circling before doing so. This meant I had to be observant of the surrounding area a full 360 degrees. More than once when I’ve slowly turned my head to look for any movement that might be an incoming gobbler, and in doing so, spooked a tom that was barely visible but scanning my setup area from just out of shotgun range.
About the only turkeys that seem to still occasionally gobble once they’re off the roost are the jakes, the one-year-old birds that apparently haven’t learned yet that gobbling gives away their location … to hunters and coyotes. This may be attributable to the fact that they often hang out in small bachelor flocks, and each is seemingly always trying to become the dominate one in that flock, and gobbling may be their way of exhibiting it to the other flock members.
The first gobbler I took this spring was rather typical of what spring hunters are dealing with in recent years. Since it’s been my experience to take my biggest gobblers late in the morning (I assume because their hens have left them to lay or nest), I didn’t start hunting until 7:30 that morning. Despite some good listening and calling setup locations, I never heard a gobble. So I opted to set up and call from a “strutting area” I knew of. An hour of soft then loud calling never produced a single gobble. Not sure where a gobbler might be, I decided to just wait, calling sparingly from that one location.
By ten o’clock I’d yet to hear or see a turkey and was considering giving up for the day. Then I saw movement off to my right in some low ground cover beneath the big red pines. A flash of black told me it wasn’t a deer or coyote. As it got closer the cover thinned and revealed what I thought was probably a hen. Then I spotted a second bird following it. As they got closer I could see they were both jakes. Then they spotted my hen decoy and boldly walked right up to it, clucking as they approached.
Now I’m not above taking a jake, but early in the season I tend to pass them up in hopes a bigger gobbler may appear. The two young toms were no more than 15 yards from me and seemed intent to hang around my decoy, scratching litter away and presumably looking for old mast. They’d been there a few minutes when I thought I saw movement in the same area where the jakes had come from. Probably another jake, I thought. Then I realized this bird was bigger, plus I could just make out that it was periodically displaying as it walked. A decent gobbler.
Now I had a problem. I’m right handed and the gobbler was on my right, meaning I’d have to move the shotgun to my left side and shoot left-handed. But those two in-my-lap jakes would certainly see all that movement, spook and also spook the bigger tom. All I could do was sit tight and wait to see how things developed.
In situations like these, time drags as you wonder if a good opportunity will ever present itself. The bigger tom was shuffling ever closer, displaying as he came. At about 25 yards he stopped and began pin-wheeling in full strut, probably trying to draw the hen (my decoy) to him, but he still never gobbled. I sensed he probably wouldn’t approach much closer so I began to also watch the two jakes, waiting for an opportunity to move without them seeing me.
After what was probably no more than five minutes one jake was out of my sight line behind a tree, then the other turned and faced directly away from me. I then swung my attention to the bigger tom, who was still strutting. When he turned away so all I could see was the back side of his tail fan, I knew it was now or never. I quickly checked to make sure the two jakes were still in position, moved the shotgun around in a smooth motion and when the bigger tom swung back around, I gave a sharp “pitt” and his head shot up like a periscope. The shotgun boomed and the two-year-old gobbler became destined for a Sunday dinner.
Maybe not a classic call-and-gobble hunt like the “old days,” but still an exciting hunt, and a big gobbler in the hand is worth two jakes in the bush, however it may occur.