Two-Tom Morning
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After obtaining permission from a good friend to hunt his farm, I took my grandson out on the opening morning of Missouri’s youth turkey season. We had a tom gobbling within exciting distance. In fact, at one point, I had McCabe get ready and put his shotgun barrel through the window of the blind, but the bird never appeared. He eventually left the immediate area, and although we still heard him gobbling, it was clear he was moving away.
When opening morning of the regular season arrived, we were at least optimistic that one tom remained in the area we had chosen to hunt.
That optimism faded for me before we left the house, as I was having trouble with my hearing aids and would have to hunt without them. Longtime friend Ron Wood, whose hearing might even be worse than mine, once told me that hunting turkeys when you can’t hear them is one of the biggest challenges a hunter can face. I had to agree, but on this morning, McCabe would be my ears.
Besides being my ears, McCabe—who has grown up—has also become somewhat of a pack mule on our hunts. I wish it were not so, as the more he is able to do, the less I am able to do, but that’s life. When we walked in, he carried our blind, which probably hits the scales at 21 pounds, while I carried the chairs and decoys. We returned to the same small pasture we had visited during the youth season, but this time, we went a little farther up the ridge and set the blind in a fencerow among the trees, with the decoys about 25 yards out in front of us.
Once we had everything set up, we climbed into the blind in the darkness and waited for shooting hours to arrive, which was probably still 20 minutes away. It was a little breezy, and we hadn’t anchored the blind, so from time to time we grabbed a cross pole to keep it from flipping over—or at least it felt like it might flip over.
The early excitement of the morning came from the owls entertaining us with their calls and their eerie laughs. I told McCabe we should be hearing a gobble shortly, but it didn’t happen. In fact, I texted a friend near Canton about how silent it was where we were hunting.
Perhaps half an hour had passed, and I had just finished a calling series when McCabe pointed over his shoulder. I whispered a phrase that would be echoed many times: “Did you hear something?” He responded that he had heard a distant gobble behind and to the left of us. I called again, and McCabe pointed once more.
“Any closer?” I asked.
“No,” he replied.
I kept calling, and finally McCabe said the tom was coming toward us. It wasn’t long before I too heard him. I could hear the gobble plainly and was certain the tom was coming in from behind us. So sure, in fact, that I had McCabe get ready in case the tom suddenly appeared.
I stopped calling, thinking the tom would close the distance. But when enough time passed and he hadn’t shown, I called again—and the tom answered back. Unfortunately, he had moved and was now leaving us. Despite my calling, he continued to pull away. Eventually, I could no longer hear him, though McCabe still could. We waited, hoping he might return.
After perhaps 10 or 15 minutes, McCabe said the tom was gobbling again. I resumed calling, but it turned into a repeat of the first session: the tom would not come close enough for a shot. After one of his gobbles, I thought I heard a second gobble farther behind us. Again, both birds retreated.
It had been a very exciting morning so far—but frustrating too, since we couldn’t get the tom within shooting distance. Around this time, I received a text from my friend near Canton asking how it was going. I responded at 7:32 a.m.: “We have had a tom come in behind us twice. Just will not close the deal.”
I called again, and we were beginning to repeat the entire show. The tom had come within what felt like 100 yards or less.
Then a crow flew near us and began calling at the turkey, driving the tom absolutely nuts. Neither McCabe nor I could tell you how many times he gobbled, but it was nearly nonstop. I stood up in the blind, took my binoculars, and scanned a clearing behind us. I caught a glimpse of the tom’s head shooting forward as he gobbled. I continued scanning and caught sight of the tail fan of a second tom with him.
I don’t know if there had been two toms each time, but there were certainly two now.
I told McCabe we needed to do something different. I had hung my turkey vest on one of the blind’s cross arms to help weigh it down against the wind and was preparing to dig out another call. I had been using my H.S. Strut “Limb Shaker” call with an acrylic striker. Instead of digging through the vest, I asked McCabe to hand me his H.S. Strut slate pot call with a Tracer lid, which is very helpful for teaching beginners how to make turkey sounds with a striker.
When I called, both toms immediately fired back and began a slow approach toward the fencerow where our blind was hidden.
What happened next unfolded so quickly it is hard to believe. We moved to the same side of the blind just as one tom appeared about 15 yards away. At the shot, the first bird went down. I cannot recall if he flopped, but about 20 feet behind him, the second tom paused between two trees, as if trying to figure out what had happened. Faster than it takes to type, I was on the second bird—and he dropped too.
What began as a slow morning with little action quickly turned into a melee.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that we had been given samples of Migra custom TSS turkey shells to evaluate. McCabe’s was in 20 gauge, and mine in 12 gauge. I’m sure about McCabe’s ammo, as he kept the box; the shot size was 7/9 in mine. We were both using 3-inch shells, although at 15 and 20 yards, it may not have been much of a test of their effectiveness.
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