Story of the Hunt

It was the day before Easter and a pleasant 53 degrees outside. A year earlier I had killed a 24 pounder in the same area I planned on hunting today. I left the house about 4:45 AM to go turkey hunting. It was my fourth time out this year. I walked into the woods, close to where the birds were roosted the morning before. Walking in was quiet as it had rained the night before.

The turkeys were roosting in trees right on the river's edge so I set up nearby. I put out my decoys in an opening by the river bank. Then I quietly stepped off 40 paces and put up my blind. I sat down waiting for the toms to start gobbling at daybreak. It seemed like forever, but I didn't have to wait long. They started gobbling at the first crow call around 5:45.

It sounded like the birds were about 300 yards away. That is when I thought maybe I should move closer, but something told me to stick it out. I began calling softly with every call in my bag trying to make the toms think there was a bunch of new hens up river. Almost 20 minutes had passed when much to my surprise, a tom up in a tree just across the river from me gobbled. He liked to scared me to death. Not knowing he was anywhere around I turned down my calling to low-low. I purred and soft clucked and he would gobble right back. This was great.

The days before this one the turkeys would always fly down and go quiet. It seemed they knew I was there and would go the other direction. But to my surprise the tom flew down right in the middle of my decoys. He went to full strut and was headed toward the jake decoy. I think he was fixing to kick his butt.

I quickly checked my watch for legal shooting time. Two minutes into season and I let my No.5's go. My shot was true and my turkey was down, but he started flopping around. My leg had gone to sleep and I was having trouble getting up. Much to my disbelief he flopped right over the bank and into the river. My heart sank as I watched my bird float down the river.

After a hour or so of searching, I thought my tom was gone forever. I walked around another bend in the river and found my turkey wedged up in a log-jam. Almost a mile and a half down river.

I hurried back home and called my brother. When he arrived at my house I told him about what had happened. We started putting together stuff to be able to reach out 30' into the river. It took about a half hour and half a roll of duck tape, but we had a crude looking fishing pole. We loaded up our fishing gear and headed for the log-jam.

The bank of the river was so steep we had to shovel steps down to the edge. It took a lot of tries, but we finally fished my tom out of the river. My turkey weighed 36 lbs. wet. After it dried out it weighed 25 lbs., it had a 9 1/2" beard, and had 1" spurs. With my big brother's help and the grace of God the tom was mine. It was a prize to behold, but the next time I would rather not have to go Turkey Fishing.