Back in the 1980s, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources traded grouse eggs with Missouri (Kentucky?) for turkey eggs, and reintroduced turkeys to Wisconsin. They found a niche for themselves, and multiplied rapidly. My Dad was very interested in the program. He attended lots of seminars, joined a couple turkey associations, gobbled it up (heh-heh). He applied for a permit for me the first year the DNR authorized a hunt, and I happened to win a permit. I took leave and got home a couple days before my period started. (The DNR spread the tags between three one-week periods.) Dad showed me how different calls worked. I couldn't get a diaphragm to work to save my life, and results with a box call were so-so, so we settled on a slate and pin call. We also drove around the countryside in the early morning and late afternoon, trying to spot turkeys, and Dad talked about them incessantly. The night before my period started, we drove up a hollow that creased one of the Mississippi River bluffs near our home that Dad had pretty much decided upon as my hunting ground. We heard turkeys calling from their roost, so we knew they would be there in the morning (turkeys do not travel at night).
The next morning, we got up really early and drove back to the hollow. Dad dropped me off with a shotgun, the call, and a hen decoy in a bag, and full camouflage suit, even a mask for my face with just two holes for me eyes. I was supposed to stick the decoy up and then back off 25 yards or so and hide. I walked across the bottom of the hollow, and then about 3/4 of the way up the steep hillside. It was pitch black, and I couldn't see what I was doing. I finally picked a spot and stuck the decoy in the ground. I sat down and waited for it to start to get light. It eventually started to lighten up, and the woods came alive with the typical rustling of squirrels and birds. Turkeys finally started to gobble, but they were on the hill on the other side of the hollow. After about 20 minutes of listening to this, with no action on my hillside, I pulled up the decoy and climbed down the hill, crossed the bottoms, and then up the other side of the hill I went. This time, about 3/4 of the way up, I came on a hayfield, covered in about three inches of alfalfa. I walked up into the field, looking all around as I came up to the crest of the hill. I got to where I could just see over the top, and I saw a turkey standing in the field. I immediately dropped down. I was out in the middle of the field, with nowhere to hide, but I stabbed the decoy into the ground and backed off and then laid down in the alfalfa, with the gun pointed at the decoy. That way, if I had to grab it and shoot, it would be more or less in the right direction, or so I hoped.
I pulled out the slate and pin, and ran the pin around on the slate a couple times, producing a couple squeaks. I got a gobble right back. I squeaked again, and again, got a gobble right back. I was wondering whether or not to do it one more time, when I noticed movement up on the crest of the field. I put the call down in a hurry and picked up the shotgun and flipped off the safety. A big round something came over the top of the hill. It was a big tom turkey, in full strut. It was all puffed up, with its tail feathers spread out in a huge fan. It looked as big as a tank. The wattle on its head was snow-white, and it was making a grumbling noise deep in its chest. It saw the decoy, and puffed up even more. It came straight down to the decoy, and I couldn't shoot, because I would have hit the decoy, too. I followed it with the front sight of the shotgun, and when it came around the side of the decoy, I touched it off. The turkey went down in a heap. I jumped up and gave a yell. I gave it a couple minutes to be sure it wasn't gong to get up and run away, and then walked up to it. It was huge! The wattle was all white still, but was starting to fade to red. There were great big spurs on the legs, and it had long hairs (the beard) growing out of its chest. I had never seen a wild turkey up close before, so I sat there and admired it for a while. It was a nice sunny day out by now, I was all alone with the turkey in a green field of alfalfa, it couldn't get any better than that. Finally, I picked everything up and slung the turkey over my back and headed back down the hill. The road ran along that side of the hill, and was cut into the bank where I came out, so there was a steep drop of about 15 feet. I stopped at the edge of the drop and called for Dad. He heard me and started the truck. He came tearing past me and I had to shout at him to stop. He slammed on the brakes, and then peeled out backing up. He jumped out of the truck, all excited.
"You got one?!", he asked.
"Yep." I said.
"Is it big?" he asked.
"I dunno. Whaddayou think?" I said, and picked it up off the ground beside me. I thought he was going to stroke out. He started jumping all over the place and babbling. I slid down the bank and he ran over and picked up the turkey and shook my hand and bawled and jumped around and shook my hand again. He calmed down after a few minutes, and then we drove into town to the registration station to register and weigh the bird. Twenty three and a half pounds, with an 11 inch beard. Not bad for two days training . To be honest, it was mostly dumb luck, though. These turkeys had never been hunted, so they had no idea there were things in the woods which could hurt them. Once he saw the decoy, that was all that tom turkey cared about. He also wasn't the biggest turkey around, either. Other hunters brought in turkey that were a 27, 29, even 30 pounds. I had read turkey hunting stories in Outdoor Life and Field and Stream. The writers talked about 20 pound turkeys with awe, and they made turkey hunting sound like it was really hard. I've talked to people from Tennessee and Kentucky since then, and they have told me that 20-25 pound turkeys are not uncommon in those states, so I don't know what those writers were talking about. Wisconsin now has more turkeys than you can shake a stick at. They congregate in big flocks on the cornfields and fields where the farmers spread manure, in the winter, and you can see some in the early morning and late afternoon almost everywhere, even in our backyard here in town.
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this page was last edited on: 09/16/08