Turkey Story
The opening day of turkey season was a weird experience for this first time turkey hunter. We got out to my friend's lease about an hour or so west of Ft. Worth and discover that we had hunters coming we had not counted on which made a change in location mandatory for yours truly. (As a guest on the lease I get the location what's left after everyone else picks a location.) Anyway it was determined that I would hunt from an elevated box stand normally used for deer hunting. Climbing up into the stand while dangling from the rickety ladder and spraying to eliminate the wasps (I'm allergic to yellow jackets), an enormous owl flies out the other end of the box and I discover that the first order of business is shoveling owl dung out of the stand floor. Anyway, I set up my decoy about a hundred yards from the stand in a clearing much lower than the stand next to brush where I had seen turkey tracks the month before. The decoy is named "attentive hen", so entitled due to the movable head.
Anyway about this time my hunting partner realizes he has forgotten his decoys and we hustle back to his home south of Dallas to pick up his decoys and get back to the lease about midnite meaning I climb into my camper shell and pass out from exhaustion. I am up and on my way before dawn the next morning being real careful to shine my flashlight on the ground as the turkey hunters had killed four rattlesnakes on this ranch in a previous season. I limp on out to the stand (due to my heel spur problem) in the 25 mph wind which according to the experienced turkey hunters doesn't bode well for turkeys moving about. What do they know anyway? I climb back up in the stand damaging my bad knee only slightly in the process and discover a) the owl has a live-in girl friend, b) they were enjoying breakfast when I disturbed them causing them to fly off, and C) evidently, they weren't too upset with me because they left me half their breakfast. However, at 6:30 am my stomack is not quite up to the rear half of a rat so I kick it out of the stand and climb on in.
My favorite rifle, a 22 Hornet single shot built on a Martini action topped by a 3 by 12x scope is the weapon of choice for this excursion. I point the scope at my decoy to make sure I've in the right place to get a shot in the unlikely event a gobbler wanders into the clearing. In the process I discover that my scope is a tad on the loose side and in fact is missing a screw on the base with the second screw nearly backed out. No idea how this happened as I had carefully sighted it in a few weeks before. Not being real sure what to do I call a couple times on my box call into the wind figuring nothings going to happen in the warm, windy conditions anyway. Nothing happens.
After a few minutes I decide I surely can't hit anything with the scope like it is and would be real embarrassed to shoot at a turkey with it. So I hike back to where my pickup is parked on my bad foot and sore knee and change out the hornet for my Winchester Model 43 218 Bee which I had brought as a backup. MORAL-Always carry a backup rifle or two.
This 1949 vintage gun has an equally vintage K-6 scope on it and is not quite as accurate as the hornet. Furthermore I had only been able to come up with five 40g FMJ bullets for it and had used one to verify that the FMJ's printed the same place as the spitzer's I normally shoot in the bee. I get back in the stand about 7:30 and use the box call every five minutes or whenever the wind gusts die down a little bit. Nothing bigger than the cardinal in the tree next to the stand and a couple of buzzards high in the sky are moving.
About 9'ish I'm day dreaming and having a difficult time staying awake. I sense more than see a large black blur moving thru the bushes beside the clearing next to my hen decoy. Knowing instinctively that it's a gobbler strutting behind the brush in full display, I shove the rifle out the hole in the door of the stand without consciously thinking. The turkey struts over to the side of my decoy but there is a small evergreen bush and some blackjack between me and him leaving no opening for a clean shot. Almost as if he knows where I'm at, he struts back and forth always keeping the brush between him and me. My arm is cramping from holding my rifle in an awkward position, and I'm about to die from the anxiety of excitement. This is worse than any buck fever.
The gobbler meanwhile seems to be having trouble getting the decoy interested in romance (kinda like being married) and I decide that if he heads back out of the clearing I'm going to shoot-brush or no brush. Finally after eight or ten minutes of stately maneuvers about the alleged female, he moves out from the evergreen but stops directly in front of my decoy. Briefly, I consider shooting him right then and there but the thought of the 3000 fps FMJ bullet going thru him and ripping into the decoy I paid $21.98 for deters me. The turkey steps back behind the oak, terrifying me with the thought that I missed my best opportunity. He struts around behind the decoy and slowly comes out from behind to check out out the front end the decoy. Looks like it's now or never to me. Shooting a 40g bullet into a heavy wind is no time for this dude to be trying no "nothin' but neck" shots so I center the cross hairs on where I think the neck joins the body and let fly. I mean with the feathers all fluffed up how can tell how much is turkey and who much is pillow stuffing?
The gobbler takes one step, plops over on his back, twitches his legs eight or ten times and dies. At this point I realize it's been over 25 years since I cleaned a chicken, a duck, or any bird bigger than a quail and I'm so excited I haven't a thought in my brain. The bullet has gone right where I aimed and I've bagged a turkey with beard which later measure nine and one-half inches. By this time it's pretty hot so I climb down from the stand and drag the turkey into the shade, clean out the insides as best I can remember and haul him back to camp and return to the stand for more watching and calling. Later, I discover that my hunting buddy advocates plucking the feathers prior to cleaning the bird but how was I to know? Do you realize how many feathers there are to be pulled on a adult gobbler? Spent a good hour doing a lousy job of plucking feathers and finally end up icing the bird down due to the hot weather. Anyway, I don't see another turkey the entire weekend within shooting range, but my friend has a successful hunt while the hunter who sits in the clearing I had intended to hunt in doesn't see anything except one hen. So it goes.
I had worked 40 hours in four days so I could drive up to the lease Friday afternoon. I showed up in my Oklahoma sweat shirt about 3'ish and my partner and one other hunter were there. The other hunter admired my Oklahoma Sooner shirt which is unusual in a Texan and as it happens he grew up in Altus about 60 miles from Elk City where I grew up. He had his tent up and we helped my partner (an experienced deer hunter in his 60's who had retired and gone back to work as a contractor) set up his tent. I tend to sleep in the back of the camper shell on my Chevy assault truck. In the midst of all the confusion the hunter's cousin who runs the lease showed up.
My friend and I had never hunted on this property, and we were told the other hunters didn't camp out, and we did not know any of the other hunters so we had planned to drive into town for the evening meal. However, they had a fire and planned to cook so we went into town and got some sausage and a fine meal of beans and sausage were had by all. Fortunately, we were downwind of the deer. The camaraderie is an indispensable part of a good experience deer hunting. Deer hunting is more than killing deer.
Due to my current state of gimpyness I drove out to within 250 yards of my box stand and walked on in. Hadn't been in the stand 10 minutes when I saw two blurs moving in the 30F morning darkness about 20 yards from my position. One had horns and I couldn't make out the other one but both were deer and disappeared into the brush before it light enough to shoot. By about 6:30 it was lighter and two eight point bucks (presumably the same ones I saw before) came out of the oak and hawthorne about 100 yards from my stand. Near as I could tell both appeared to be mature bucks with antlers sticking out past the ears. Decision time. If I shoot one of the bucks my hunting is over after opening weekend. I decide not to shoot and then decide to shoot the larger deer. By this time all I can see of the larger deer is his head and I decline the shot as too risky even though I am certain I can send the 165g Remington SP into his head at the 125 yard range. Thus, I commit the cardinal sin of deer hunting in Texas i.e. never pass a decent buck as you may never see another one. And I don't see another deer in the morning. Back at camp for lunch my partner has seen a small six point buck with two does and both other hunters has seen does. No one has shot anything but the two eight point bucks I had seen were the largest anyone reported.
My partner needs some minor repair to his stand so I go out and help him and then get into my stand about 3:00 PM somewhat later than I intended. Hadn't been sitting 15 minutes when a doe crossed one of the shooting lanes I had cleared through the Hawthorns. Formerly, these trees had two inch thorns but I had removed all the thorns in various parts of my anatomy whilst clearing brush. Doe season in this county lasts only two days and consequently I am eager to take a doe. We eat deer at my house.
The doe disappears into the fringe of the brush at the edge of the area I can see. I'm looking intently for 30 minutes but somehow she magically reappears on the other side of my hunting area working her way away from me toward the heavy stand of oak trees. Deers is stealthy creatures. The outline of the deer's body is visible only the neck and head are above the brush between me and her. Deciding this is as good as it gets I settle the crosshairs of the 2x7 Simmons mounted on my Model 70 on her neck and let fly. She reacts violently to being hit by the 30-06 and drops out of sight underneath the brush. I limp out to where I last saw the deer there she lays still twitching. Another shot to the neck ends the matter as I've heard too many stories about "dead" deer coming alive and running off.
Unfortunately, I have to drag the field dressed carcass about 120 yards to where I can get my pickup to it and manage to strain ankle, knee, and just about every joint on my right side but finally get back into the stand about 4:45. It's not good to be old. Unsurprisingly, nothing else moves. I drive back to camp after dark looking to promote some help to get the deer hung up the Mesquite tree were camping under. No else is in camp, but I see lights around a big oak tree about 100 yards from camp. I hang my deer in the mesquite tree, walk on down and the lease boss and his cousin have the biggest, blackest boar hog I've ever seen on the end of a lariat rope strung over a high, heavy branch with the other end of the rope tied to his trailer hitch on his pickup. I look at him and go "Funniest lookin' buck I ever saw". His rejoinder is a really funny story about pigs and farm hands but I can't repeat it in a family echo. It takes four of us about 2 hours to field dress and butcher the hog (estimated weight 350-400 pounds) and we end up going to town cause it's too late to cook supper.
The feral hog was shot in the heart with a 7 mag at long range and still managed about 40 yards of full speed ahead before being put down with a second heart shot. MORAL-Hunt pigs from a tree and wait before recovering big ones. Didn't a wise man once say something about using enough gun? As a side note whoever said lare, feral hog meat is too gross to eat was confused. The ribs off this dude fed eleven members of my mom's family over Thanksgiving including my toothless eighty plus year old grandmother who had seconds.
Both my partner and I wake up sick (me with a head cold and sinus problems, him with allergies) in the morning and decide to go home at lunch (I'm a wimp personally). I don't see anything all morning but hear a couple of shots about 9:45. About 11:30 I get back to my truck and see the lease boss driving down the county road. He asks me what I'd shot and we figure that my partner must have shot and he's sticking around to check it out. My friend shows up and he's wounded a deer which has made it into the heavy trees and brush on the bottom that runs through the ranch. He had trailed him about 40 yards and then lost the blood trail in the brush. We drive down to the area where he shot the buck and follow the trail to where my partner has lost it. We're in heavy timber, thick with green briars and neither my partner or I were in the best of shape. He had attempted a neck shot and assumed he hit the buck somewhere on the neck. The blood was bright red which to me appeared to be indicative of a muscle wound. What do I know, being the least experienced of the three hunters? Between us we follow the trail another 70 or 80 yards the bottom and the lead tracker hears the deer get up. By this time the blood trail is the infamous one drop every five to ten yards. Our strategy is to push the deer hard hoping it will weaken before we do. (Incidentally, I got my doubts about this working out considering my condition.)
We lose the trail and then discover the deer had doubled back, crossed a pipeline cut in the woods, and was into the thick brush in the other direction. Following fresh blood sign we quietly walk a mile and half before losing the trail in a thicket. Deciding to push hard through the thicket we agree not to shoot due to the impossibility of keeping track of everyone. There is also a concern as to getting too close to the edge of an unplanted wheat field which has a deer stand which may or may not contain a hunter. Pushing through the thicket produces no discernible result except that I discover about a dozen drops of blood in about a six inch circle indicating that the deer had come this way recently. I get separated from the other hunters and we start working our way back the way we had come once we located each other. The party is somewhat disheartened as at two different points we were very close to the buck as indicated by the freshness of the blood sign and now have lost the trail altogether.
By this time we had been following the deer about three hours and I was exhausted and my partner who is 20 years older than I was in worse shape. The lease boss cuts very fresh blood sign and we follow it to the wheat field fence. He spots the deer 40 yards out the wheat field and manages to miss it offhand at 40 yards. (This from a dude who pumped two 7mm mag's into a feral hog's heart at 300 yards.) The deer is so weak it can only manage to get up on two legs and my partner finishes his nice nine point off with a neck shot. He shot the deer originally around 9:45 in the morning and it's about 3:00 PM before we recover it. It had been wounded in hind thigh area with without breaking the leg bone but managed to double back twice, and stay ahead of the hunters in heavy brush for about three hours.
Sin and Redemption Part II
It's not often one gets a chance to rectify one's mistakes in this world but occasionally there's an opportunity for redemption.
Four am this morning and the alarm goes off. The weather prediction from the various nightly newscasters had been highly variable. Anywhere, from a low of 53F or the high 30's. Trying to figure out what's going to be warmest sitting in the dark in a deer stand is more difficult when one's mind is fuzzy from sleep. I am not a morning person. Thermal underware, insulated pants, and the light non-insulated camo jump suit are selected.
By 4:30 I'm bopping down LBJ freeway in Dallas, coffee in hand, in mouth and on shirt. First bank sign I past says its 30F; a second agrees. Wonder when season on weather forecasters opens? By sixish I'm sitting comfortably in my blind, freezing my tail off as the wind whistles through the openings in the blind hitting nothing except my bones. The forecast had been for calm. See previous sarcastic remark about weather forecaster season. Nothing moves, as black turns to grey, and finally there's enough light to see. But there's nothing to see except the shades of greying brown. The pasture hasn't gotten enough water this year. As usual I get colder after sitting a while as the exertion I've worked up by walking to the stand wears off.
The wind gusts and blows and I'm grateful for my ten gallon stocking cap (custom made by my mother-in-law) and heavy matching wrap. Not enough to keep my head warm of course but nearly enough to stave off frostbite. About 7:30 the thought occurs to me that it's not mandatory to hunt all morning. Even serious hunters knock off early once in a while. I glance over to the clearing where I had shot the doe the week before and there's a deer there. A little deer, but it seams to be a buck. I check it out in the scope and it's the strangest thing - a fork horn but it only has a horn on one side. I mean a single horned spike is obviously a unicorn but what do you call a deer that would be a four point if he had both horns? Beats me. The deer works his way through the post oak and hawthorn brush across the little meadow where I hunt but instead going across the meadow and disappearing out of side he turns and heads straight for me. He walks to within 20 yards of my stand eats some acorns or something from the branches of the oak tree, paws the ground and urinates in it. I almost laugh. This little guy is about as good an impersonation of a buck as I am a hunter.
He disappears down the wooded gully and I'm grateful for the excitement but am getting colder and colder. Again nothing moves. I finally have to get out of the stand and walk a little bit in the cool sunshine to avoid turning into a popsickle. Wonder how the hunter who's supposed to be using the unsheltered tripod stand is making out. Back in the blind I decide to stick it out till 10:00 and then head to the camp area to see if anyone's there. I know at least one of the other seven hunters on the lease has shown up as I had seen pickup lights when I turned into the property.
Around 9:00 I see a large buck flash through a small clearing on the extreme limit of the area I can see. He looks a lot like one of the bucks I had passed on at dawn opening morning of season the previous week. The single antlered forkhorn also appears about 40 yards ahead of the bigger buck, running, and disappears in the brush to the south of my stand. Suddenly, he pops back into view and runs through the same place he had come and but where he goes I haven't a clue because he being chased by the large buck which is running more or less straight toward me. I don't advocate shooting at running game, but in my frozen state, this is more than I can take and when his chest fills the cross hairs of the Simmons scope, I shoot him. Or at him. He shows no reaction to my shot other than turning and galloping off in the direction from whence he came. I give him a few minutes and walk over to where he was when I shot. No blood, no deer, no nothing.
After about 30 minutes I walk in the direction the deer had run toward carefully checking the ground for blood or deer or something. There's nothing. I'm cussin' myself for shooting at a running animal but I know the one situation when it should work out is close range and the deer heading directly at or away from me. Carefully reviewing the picture of the deer when I shot I discover that I have no recollection of the bullet kicking up any dirt. If I missed the deer the bullet should have splashed up a dust cloud. And how could I miss at 50-60 yards anyway? I walk back to where I shot at the deer and finally locate a single cube of red meat sticking up on a weed about 18 inches off the ground. Picking it up, it looks like deer meat to me. I hit this deer. But no blood. Walking slowing in the direction the deer ran, I find another piece of flesh and a minute fragment of white tissue a few yards from the first piece but still no blood, no trail to follow. Searching again for more indication of where he went and finding nothing. I decide to see if I can promote another pair of eyes.
I drive back to the gate into the property and run into the tripod hunter. He had given it up and went into town to get some warmer hand coverings. In the comraderie of hunters even though he was going back to hunt some more, he agrees to come and help me locate the deer I've shot. He suggests that wounded deer go to water and we spend 45 minutes walking out a creek and tanks in the direction the deer had run. No blood, no sign, no deer, no nothin'. We go back to the marker where I found the first piece of flesh and walk in the direction I had seen the deer run. Casting back and forth from where I shot the deer I find a single drop of blood now pretty much dry on a oak leaf about 50 yards away where we found the flesh. At least we know he came this way and he bled. I was beginning to think I had shot super-deer and the bullet had bounced off his chest. We trail him for about 200 yards, constantly loosing and then finding the blood trail. By and large there isn't much blood to see but it's difficult to find on the dried foot high grass. Often all there is to be found is just a red smear on a tan stem. The best chance of finding blood spots is on leaves but he's worked himself through an open area that is mostly grass. Some of the grass has turned dull red which makes discerning blood stains difficult and often a drop of blood turns out to be a little red berry. Finally, we see no trail for about 20 yards. It takes us about 15 minutes to locate a big mark and we find nothing else but it makes no difference because the other hunter finds my buck stone cold dead where it tried to reach the heavy brush at the edge of the bottom.
Near as I can tell he's the same buck I passed on opening morning. I count ten points and the inside spread on the antlers measures 16". He is much bigger than the eight point I shot last year and I'm deleriously happy not only that he's a big deer, but more so that we found him. We field dress him and drag him out by his horns about 125 yards to where we can drive, having to stop three times to rest. The 165g Remington soft point handload from my 30-06 had hit him on the center of the neck/chest and had gone into the backstrap without exiting perhaps half the length of the animal pretty much where I aimed. I hate it when that happens. He had made it almost 400 yards before collasping and dying. Perhaps, a bit lower would have been better but I had shot in instand decision mode without time for much analysis. Deer are creatures of enormous vitality.
I guess even in hunting sometimes you get a second chance.