Posted by Brian Lovett, Contributing Editor

If someone offered me two Butterball turkeys for the low cost of a 1,560-mile round trip on a few hours of sleep, I’d tell them to buzz off. But two hard-gobbling, snow-white Merriam’s gobblers for that price?

I just returned home from a whirlwind trip to the Oglala Sioux Pine Ridge Reservation in southwestern South Dakota, where I joined two friends and legendary turkey hunter Jeff Budz for a Merriam’s hunt. For folks who don’t know Budz, check out his Web page at www.tagitworldwide.com. This hard-driving hunter has 50 grand slams to his credit, so we couldn’t have asked for a better guide.

The area had been pounded by up to 9 inches of snow two days before our arrival, but the previous group had still enjoyed great success. And sure enough, Wade Atchley of Alabama got the trip off to a dandy start by killing a gorgeous gobbler at about 6 p.m.

The next morning, Budz promised to take us “deep undercover,” so we wound through miles of muddy two-track roads into some of the most gorgeous pine-covered hill country you’ll ever find. And when two birds responded to pre-dawn coyote howls, the Jeff Budz Show was on.

Atchley immediately scored again, taking another beautiful bird at less than 15 paces. Budz then found me, and we tried to track down a hard-gobbling bird on a hidden ridge. After about 20 minutes of intense walking and climbing, we eased up a slope and peered over.

“There’s his fan!” Budz whispered. “Get down.”

Thankfully, the bird hadn’t seen us, but we had no cover. That’s when Budz pulled out a great trick. He took a tail from a Merriam’s he’d shot that week and fanned it in front of us, which not only imitated a strutting gobbler but also gave us a bit of cover. Immediately, the strutter walked 15 yards closer, and I shot him at 41 steps.

It was a great moment, but it didn’t last long. Even as we stood over the still-flopping bird, Budz spied a lone strutter on a ridge 500 yards distant.

“Brian, go kill that turkey,” he said.

Who was I to argue? I dropped off into a bottom, hiked up and down a couple of ridges and made my way up to the field. Then, I ditched my vest, belly-crawled to a crest near a lone pine and surveyed the area. Seconds later, I spotted the bird’s fan about 80 yards away. He hadn’t seen me. Better yet, he seemed to be heading my way. I yelped softly on a mouth call, and the longbeard gobbled, dropped off his ridge and then waltzed to within 36 steps, where my load of 31/2-inch 6s stopped him.

As amazed as I was with the quick success, I hadn’t seen anything yet.
Budz, Atchley and Atchley’s friend Ronnie had watched from the truck as I shot the bird, and they’d also spotted two strutters on a nearby ridge. Within 40 minutes after I scored, Budz had Ronnie on the birds, and two shots echoed across the hilltops. Atchley and I arrived minutes later to see a pair of big gobblers in the grass.

Our group had just killed five longbeards before 8 a.m. With that, the trip was finished. We took a few pictures, cleaned the birds, thanked Budz for a great camp and headed home.

It took me 11 hours and 20 minutes to zoom across South Dakota, Minnesota and most of Wisconsin, and I was dog-tired when I finally reached my house. Atchley and Ronnie’s trip spanned 20-some hours. But I guess that’s the price we had to pay for our brief sojourn on Pine Ridge time.
 

Posted by Jim Schlender, Editor

I had heard countless stories about cooperative, loud-mouthed, hard-charging Merriam's turkeys but had never gone after one. So I was thrilled at the chance to share a turkey camp with several writers and industry friends near Interior, S.D., last week. Interior sits about an hour east of Rapid City. The area is mostly flat cattle country punctuated by spectacular views of rock formations that make up the badlands. Badlands National Park sits right on the edge of Interior and the views it presents would make the trip worthwhile even if you weren't turkey hunting.

With a few hours of daylight left after arriving, stowing our gear and patterning our shotguns, my friend and Knight & Hale representative Gary Sefton and I were eager to stretch our legs. We started our hunt on some private ranch ground that was bisected by a creek. Glassing from high ground, we had spotted several turkeys on the other side of the waterway and planned to drop into the bottom, cross the creek and try to make something happen. 

We followed a cowpath down to the bottom. When we got there we found our "creek," which appeared benign from up high, was actually a pretty swift-moving small river. This was no doubt due to runoff from the massive snowstorm that had hit the area just days earlier. There was no way to cross, so we had little choice but to retrace our steps back up toward the top. While following the edge of a small pasture where we had bumped a hen on the way in, Sefton suggested we just wait out the evening right where we were. After all, because we were unable to cross the creek we didn't have a lot of room to roam.  

Sefton alternately ran a mouth call and K&H Silver Hammer friction call. Within minutes two hens popped out of a canyon across the pasture. They came within about 40 yards and milled around before finally wandering off.

"Hit that box once," Sefton said.

I stroked out a few yelps on K&H's new Wet Willy box call he had given me just a couple hours earlier. Powwwww! A gobble came from deep in the canyon, barely audible. I hit the box again and the bird gobbled, this time closer. This tom was following the script. Less than 10 minutes later he appeared at the same place the hens had come from. The deal got even sweeter when the bird's buddy appeared right behind him.

The turkeys alternately strutted and gobbled each time Sefton coaxed them closer with his mouth call. Suddenly it occurred to me we might have a very real chance at a double. I was able to shift my gun into position after setting down the box call, but Sefton still needed to do a bit of creative slow-motion pivoting to draw a bead on the birds as they quickly cut the distance from 150 to 50 yards. By the time they got to almost 30 I was wondering if they would run us over. Finally, Sefton gave the signal he was ready. My shot was immediately followed by his, and moments later we were tagging a pair of 3-year-olds.

"We ran 'em hard and didn't give 'em any water, didn't we?" Sefton joked as we shook hands and admired our trophies.

I like a long duel with a crafty longbeard as much as any other hunter, but I have to admit it's kind of neat to bust a tom that plays by the rules every now and then. This was a classic Merriam's hunt: They traveled a long way to get to us and they liked lots of loud calling. The hunt was especially meaningful to me because this was the third subspecies my friend and I had killed together. And because I'm quite often the last guy in camp with an unpunched tag, I didn't mind closing the deal early. Besides, I still had one tag left and three more days to fill it.

I'll save the rest of my South Dakota story for my next blog entry.

Posted by Brian Lovett, Contributing Editor

If you’re seeking tales of classic hunts, you might want to click out of this entry. Maybe you can read Jim Schlender’s tales of South Dakota.

However, if you’re in the mood for the type of bizarre, goofed-up yarns only Eastern wild turkeys can provide, read on.

The other morning here in Wisconsin, I struck a bird high atop a timbered ridge and then marched toward him. When I reached the property line, I called again, and the bird responded from what seemed like a mile away. But hey, with nothing else going on, I had nothing to lose, so I sat down and yelped again.

Fifteen seconds later, I looked up to see the gobbler sprinting. What the heck? But instead of running toward me in the finger ridge, he paralleled me and dropped off into a deep bottom, where he gobbled his head off for the next 20 minutes. Of course, I expected him to charge up the hill at any moment, so I had twisted around the tree and struggled to hold my gun up for what would surely be a quick shot.

And you’ve no doubt guessed that he never came. Instead, he slowly waltzed and gobbled down the bottom, eventually giving me a farewell response from about 150 yards distant.

“That does it,” I thought. “I’m going to dog him all morning.”

I arose, slipped 50 yards through the woods and called again.

Nothing.

Certain I had bumped him. I cursed my clumsiness and wondered what to do.

“Might as well sit here for a half-hour,” I thought. “Maybe I didn’t bump him, and if so, he could come back.”

Fair enough. I sat and left the calls alone.

After 30 minutes had passed, I’d had enough, so I scanned my eyes through the trees for one final look.

Turkey at 150 steps!

I couldn’t believe it. Was it him? I didn’t know. But I’d find out soon, because the bird began running at me. 

Soon, I heard soft crunching in the leaves, and a small blue head popped up five feet away. It was a hen. She saw me immediately, putted once and then ran away.

I was flabbergasted. A pepper-hot gobbler runs through the woods toward me, then goes completely around me and gobbles his head off going away. And to top it off, a hen sprints to me, busts me and probably boogers the woods while making her escape.

Only then did I see the two strutters that had been trailing her. They were walking up a logging road behind some thick brush, and I wasn’t sure if I could get on them in time. Somehow, I managed to contort my body around the tree, lean forward, cant the gun and stop the trailing bird at the edge of range. And thankfully, he collapsed at the shot.

It was one of the oddest hunts I’d experienced in a while. While toting the 2-year-old out of the woods, I wondered how the first gobbler and the hen and her strutters hadn’t crossed paths while running in opposite directions.

Who knows why turkeys do what they do half the time? I guess if we ever figured out everything, it wouldn’t be much fun.

Posted by Jim Schlender

Posted by Brian Lovett, Contributing Editor

I tossed and turned all night worrying about the setup. Then I fretted over it while driving to the woods. And when it came time to decide, I still didn’t know.

While scouting April 22, the day before my first Wisconsin season opened, two friends and I found loads of turkey sign around a corn-stubble field surrounded by pines and a hardwood ridge. The area was a no-brainer, but all those big trees posed a problem. After all, the birds could roost right off the field edge, and because the moon was almost full, the area would be brighter than a firefly long before flydown.

The safe play would be to sneak up a logging road and listen from a remote corner of the field, far from paranoid eyes in the trees. The aggressive move would be to slip along the pines at the field’s northern edge so I was closer to the suspected roost areas.

Well, at 4:45 a.m., I was still hemming and hawing. So, perhaps being a bit anxious, I chose the aggressive option, and friend Craig Netzer and I slipped along the pines until we reached the base of the connecting ridge.

Within minutes, several birds fired up from some big white pines across the field. Good deal. We slipped back into the red pines and set up, and I scratched out some soft tree-yelping. And that’s about when another bird fired up — directly over Craig’s head. I swear it rained needles down on his camo cap.

The turkey didn’t gobble much, so I think he was a bit “off” because of the shadowy shapes he’d just seen on the field edge. However, the gobblers across the field choked themselves for 15 minutes. Then, heavy wingbeats indicated they were headed toward the ground.

Two birds landed in the field about 100 steps away. After gobbling twice and strutting and drumming a bit, the birds marched in, and I shot the lead longbeard at 28 steps.

It was 5:35 a.m., and honestly, I could barely make out the green and red on my fiber-optic sights.

Had we been any later or made one stupid move, we probably would have busted countless turkeys out of the area. But thankfully, we had been early — and fortunate — enough to pull it off.

To make the day even better, I joined landowner Steve Pethke for a midmorning hunt. After several fruitless calling sequences, we hiked to the top of a long ridge, called and then listened. I started saying something to Steve when I heard what I thought was a crow. Steve knew better.

“Gobble!” he said. “Let’s get up on top of the ridge and get a fix on him.”

We did, and the next calling sequence was met by a thunderous response — about 80 steps away on a wooded point. The bird was just out of sight over the rise.

Steve scrambled for a large boulder, and I settled behind him at a birch tree. Figuring we were OK, I eased out some soft yelps on a glass call, and the longbeard hammered back. Good. He was headed directly toward us.
After a bit of purring, some great spitting and drumming and a tense 90 seconds, Steve’s gun roared, and longbeard No. 2 was flopping.

Again, had we rushed in or taken that proverbial “one step too many,” we would have boogered that lonely gobbler. But thankfully, someone up above must have been looking out for us.

Maybe this marks the start of a new trend. Could I possibly go an entire season without bumping, boogering or spooking a gobbler? Ha! We all know better.

But for that day at least, the sight of two gobblers in the truck and the smile on Steve’s face helped me avoid such gloomy thoughts.
 

Posted by Brian Lovett, Contributing Editor

An old turkey hunting cliché tells us that every day is opening day. Yeah, I know that’s pretty lame. But there’s also a lot of truth there.

I was reminded of that this past week, when I joined co-workers Craig Netzer and Dustin Reid for an opening-week Wisconsin hunt. The pair had been seeing wads of gobblers at a nearby property, much of which consisted of open fields and pastures. We planned to set up in a fence-line blind and try to lure the birds across a field and into range — something they had been doing on their own, anyway.

Of course, nothing went as planned. “Our” turkeys were roosted in a swamp across the field, and they tore it up that morning.

Unfortunately, they pitched down the other way and pretty much disappeared. Meanwhile, a bird that was roosted to the north sailed into the pasture and landed 75 steps behind us, catching me flat-footed. As we slowly turned to face the gobbler, a hen joined him in the pasture, and he began strutting and gobbling for her. After a few minutes, the disinterested hen flew over the pasture fence and walked directly behind us in the field. I figured the gobbler would follow at any minute … but no. Instead, he dropped out of strut and slowly walked away over the rise.

It was 5:45 a.m., and our morning was pretty much finished.

Lacking a better plan, we returned to the pasture blind the next day, and things took a turn for the worse. First, two hunters walked directly under the turkeys on the neighboring property — while wearing headlamps — and then climbed into a tree stand about two trees over from where the birds were roosted. Then, they began cutting and yelping incessantly. Believe it or not, the birds gobbled once or twice at it. But as you probably guessed, they flew down the other way and clammed up.

Meanwhile, there was nothing gobbling at our place. Figuring we’d wait 15 minutes and then hit another area, I called a bit and then set my slate call down. That’s when I saw it.

“Dustin, is that a turkey on top of the hill?” I whispered.

Sure enough. Within minutes, three jakes made a beeline for our decoys.

Dustin eased slowly to his right, got the gun into position and then made a great shot on the lead bird.

Sweet. A seemingly rotten morning was suddenly a day to remember.
Of course, Craig still had a tag, so we went to another spot and immediately heard a bird gobble on its own. Slipping into a small pine grove bordered by a hayfield, Craig set up, and I called again to get a fix on the turkeys. They were several hundred yards away, past another thick pine stand.

For a while, the gobblers — I figured there were two, maybe three — hit every call. Then, they gobbled intermittently, sometimes at calling but also at crows, a garbage truck and seemingly nothing at all. And they never moved.
Figuring the setup was hopeless, Dustin and I had never gotten into position. In fact, we were kneeling at the field edge about 10 steps behind Craig. I was about to suggest that we leave when a gobble erupted 200 yards in front of us. Holy smokes — it was from the field edge. However, that was followed by a half-gobble and raucous jake yelping, so I pretty much disregarded the first gobble.

And minutes later, when I saw a turkey slipping toward us through the pines, I expected a jake to appear. Imagine my surprise when I glimpsed golden-brown feathers and heard the prettiest little hen yelp in the world.

That’s when I heard the drumming. Great. The hen had brought along a strutter. No wait — two strutters. Better, the birds were over the rise and out of sight from Craig, headed straight toward me and Dustin, who were kneeling like altar boys in the open. There was no doubt that we’d be busted shortly.

Within seconds, two hens and the strutters popped into the field behind us. One gobbler must have seen us move, because he rubber-necked it across the field into some hardwoods. Still, the hens and remaining longbeard slowly circled around behind us and to the left.

Dustin and I frantically hissed at Craig to crawl up toward us so he could shoot the turkey. Meanwhile, the birds were slowly moving out of range, so I called once. The gobbler responded, actually turned away from the hen and began walking toward us.

As Craig slithered to get into position, I alternately glimpsed the bird’s fan and head as he angled toward us, strutting just below the lip of the hill. When the gun went off, I jumped up, saw the flopping turkey and breathed a huge sigh of relief. Somehow, we’d pulled it off.

The moral of the story? Maybe every day really is opening day. Or maybe you’d better be ready to accept good fortune when it falls in your lap.