Posted by Jim Schlender, Editor

Eddie Stevenson and I had followed the directions of outfitter James Woodley, parallelling a riverbank in the dark while looking for a “big clump of cottonwoods." We found the trees, but after walking a half-mile or so we weren’t sure if we had yet reached the area Woodley suggested or whether we had walked right past it. With the first hint of light, the turkeys gave us the answer. It sounded as if at least four gobblers were roosted across the river in the trees that ringed a large hayfield.

The closest birds were only 150 yards away, but with the river between us and them, I wasn’t sure how the morning would play out. Then I remembered Woodley telling us that the birds fly back and forth across the river routinely. I hoped he was right.

Stevenson and I set up about 15 yards apart against a couple of big trees. When some squawky hens joined in with the gobbling, we went ahead and threw a little bit of everything at them – the Wet Willy box that had worked so well the day before, a K&H Glass Hammer pot call and various mouth diaphragms all got a workout. With so many hens roosted near the gobblers and that darn river in between us, we figured we had nothing to lose.

Eventually we heard birds flying down. I even caught glimpses of a few of them as they pitched down toward the distant hayfield. (Sigh.) One of those mornings, I figured. The gobbling became sporadic and then ended altogether. (Louder sigh.)

We kept calling and got an occasional answer. Then, about 45 minutes after the first gobble, I caught movement in the tall grass across the river. It was a hen, and as soon as she hit the open edge she hopped up and flapped across. She was followed moments later by another hen. A third bird followed, and it looked much bigger … gobbler!

The hens had already skirted us and run off, and we were afraid the tom would follow, so we hit him with some more calling. The tom alternately strutted and gobbled, looking our way and then looking at the rapidly departing hens. The hens had appeared so suddenly I hadn’t been able to get my gun up. Now the tom was drawing closer and I wasn’t ready to shoot. He started to fade away, and then went behind a tree. I turned 20 degrees and aimed at the right side of the tree. “When he comes out …” I said to myself. Well, he stepped out, all right, still in strut. I cutt at him. He strutted. Eddie cutt at him. He strutted. He was drifting out of range one foot at a time, and now I was wondering if I still had a shot. The bird paused and looked back at what I figured was about 50 yards.

Finally, the bird stretched up his neck as if to say, “I’m leaving, last chance to come with.” I pulled the trigger and ended things right there. I looked at my watch: 5:30, just 12 hours after shooting my first South Dakota turkey.

Once again, it had been classic Merriam’s hunting. We didn’t have to worry about overcalling, and the bird had closed the distance in a hurry.

What wasn’t so classic was the gun and load I had used. Stevenson, Remington’s media relations manager, had brought several of the company’s 870s and 11-87s outfitted with the new ShurShot stock, which is a sort of hybrid thumbhole/pistol-grip stock. These guns have a 23-inch barrel and come outfitted with fiber-optic, fully adjustable rifle sights. In short, they are dedicated turkey guns.

Stevenson had also brought several boxes of Wingmaster HD loads, Remington’s version of “heavier than lead” shotshells. Normally I would have been shooting No. 6 shot, but somehow ended up with a box of 4s. This all worked out well, because the turkey I had just killed with the 11-87 turned out to be 60 yards away (I paced it off twice), not 50. With hardly a stitch of grass between me and the bird and no landmark but the aforementioned tree (which Eddie and I had both estimated to be 30 yards away; it was 42), I’d been fooled.

I like carrying a range-finder when turkey hunting – and obviously could have used one in this situation -- but out West I thought a binocular would be more valuable, so I took my trusty 8x30 Swarovski and left the range-finder at home. Even a gear junkie like me has a limit as to how much stuff to carry. I don’t advocate taking 60-yard shots, but in this case, having a tight-patterning, dedicated gun, choke and load paid off and made up for my error.

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.