Today is the first Saturday of regular shotgun turkey season in Kansas. For me it was all about the sound. I don't mean noise, as noise it what is generally barely perceived throughout the day, mostly in the background, and noise means very little. This morning it was about the sound of spring in the turkey woods.
The weather pattern over the last 48 hours included overcast skies with rain/thunder and hail, and aways off even brief tornadoes (its Kansas!). My first sound of the morning was a huge thunderous boooom followed by heavy raindrops falling on the skylight. Two hours before the alarm was set to go, I fired up the radar and tried to extrapolate into the future to determine if it would be smart to sleep in or go ahead with the plan to make a solo run to the magical hayfield. As it seemed the worst of it would be pushing off north and east, I kept my alarm set.
My alarm was set for 4 a.m., and I was awake and away quickly. The streets were wet, but no rain was falling so the only time I heard the wipers chatter on the glass was when I was passed by some out-of-towners who failed to recognize the construction zone speed trap and passed me instead of slowing down. Turning off the highway onto the county dirt road that leads to my little slice of heaven, I just beat the freight train at the crossing. The splashing of sandy water hitting the mudflaps meant that I was three miles away from my gearing up spot. As I pulled off the road and hopped out of the car, the owl chorus was in full voice. I thought I could count six different spots for the o'dark thirty performance.
In the distance, flashes of lightning arced from cloud to ground and danced amongst the clouds themselves. If I concentrated I could barely hear the thunder, or did I just feel it in my chest?
I pulled my old winchester 12 out of its case, and very quickly figured out that the tin where most all the turkey shotshells are kept hadn't made the trip north with me today. As it turns out i had Julia's 20 in the trunk as well, and I did have turkey loads for that gun.
Making my way up the hill I ghosted along without any headlamp use, as the path is smooth enough for safe walking. The ground was wet and the only sound I made was the slight rustling of my waders and the sucking sound of the boot pulling out of the imprint It had just made.
Two weekends ago during youth season I made a tactical error walking in to our hayfield, and had set up nearly under the roost of a turkey, flushing him out of the tree with a startled yelp, sticks braking and flapping of huge wings as he made his escape. I decided to set up along the treeline of the creek this time just in case the bird had chosen that same tree last night.
Trains run very regularly within two miles of my spot, and I often use the throbbing if the engine and horn tooting as a sound cover, if, as was happening this morning, there was no wind blowing.
As quietly as I could and intentionally waiting a couple of minutes for the next train to go by, I set out two decoys and sat down. I was covered on my right by a small cedar, and on my left by some newly leafing shrubs and several clumps of Johnson grass.
I heard my first waking turkey noise, right where I had flushed out the bird two weekends ago. Then more turkeys gobbled to my right, which got the boys behind me and to my left going as well. Way off in the distance more birds were gobbling. What a concert.
It was still and dark, and off to my right where the main roost is, I heard the ugly "cronk" of a great blue heron. The turkeys loudly replied. A few seconds layer I was startled by that same heron flying right over my head cronking away. I may or may not have looked around to see if anyone caught my flinching at the sound of the bird, not unlike when a kid at the park trips and quickly looks around to see if anyone recognizes your America's funniest videos moment.
Over the next thirty minutes as the sky continued to slowly lighten in the east, there were Canada geese, pheasants, crows , owls, peacocks, coyotes, ducks, quail and chickens all blended in to a ebbing and flowing concerto of song. Missing from the soprano section of the choir was the hee-hawing of the donkeys that (used to?) live up the road.
At fly down time, the closest roosting birds started quite a ruckus. If I shut my eyes, I thought maybe the fighting birds reminded me of star troopers shooting at Han and Chewie ( minus the explosions). Although I was close to the roost, I couldn't see the birds in their roost, and I didn't hear the birds pitch out of the trees.
As the morning progressed there would be gobbles coming from all points of the compass. The most constant gobbles came from across the wood lot, and down by the newly swollen creek. I stubbornly staid put, calling sporadically, and felt gratified that on several occasions it seemed like my mouth call, slate and box call were all getting responses.
The biggest adrenaline rush and heart rate increase occurred around nine o'clock. I had already seen several deer working the edges of the field, and when I saw movement on the crest of the hill, I assumed that it was yet another whitetail. Looking closer through the binoculars, I saw that it was a bedraggled coyote. About the time I saw the coyote, he saw my decoys. Going still as a statue, this canine begin to plot his approach. Using the contour line of the hayfield he angled back and forth, getting closer to the decoys. He flared off once, only to came back stronger when a second even wetter coyote started down the slope towards the decoys. If I had my 12 gauge, they were both in lethal shotgun range. As I had the 20 gauge Mossberg Bantam and this early in the morning on the first weekend of turkey season, I decided to let these dogs off the hook.
The morning rolled on, with the clouds getting darker and a windless dawn transforming to a light breeze. Gobbling activity became more sporadic. On several occasions the volume of the gobbles seemed to increase, and then sadly fade away as if the turkey making this "here I am" call was only willing to come so far, and then head back from where he had just been.
My cell phone vibrated in my pocket, pulling me back to reality. My mother in law had fallen and broken at least one rib. I needed to get back to town. I dashed across the field to switch out the memory card in the trailcam, and headed to town. Although there had been hundreds of gobbles floated into the air this morning, I only saw one hen turkey.......and it had been a fantastic morning in the turkey woods
