This spring gobbler season found this old hunter atop one of the celebrated Endless Mountains of Tioga County, on an old favorite spot I refer to as Hickory Ridge. This spring gobbler season was a very special one, though. In poor health, I have to wonder how many more spring seasons I have. As fate would have it, in the last hour of the last Saturday, the boss gobbler of Hickory Ridge made a mistake.
I had been hunting hard and long for this bird, and on this, the final day of the season, I was ready to go by 4:30. I knew he was there and I needed to see him. I checked my pockets for my necessities, from nitroglycerin pills to restart my heart should it quit ticking, to a fabulous turkey call I fashioned from a cigar tube and a slice of latex, which has worked for me when nothing else would, save a Quaker Boy Pro Tube caller I love to use when calling for birds out of box call range. I’d practiced with the cigar tube call in my office until my wife was ready to put my in a straight jacket.
Soaked to the bone from the steady rain, I got into position near the roosting old bird, hoping I was in the right spot. As I leaned back against the bark of an aged hickory I reflected upon the past three weeks of dogging turkeys from mountain to mountain, hollow to hollow.
My mind then wondered over the spring seasons of years past. I thought of a long ago friend, Juju DiPrimio from my old hometown, Greensburg. I recalled his spirited passion for hunting and wondered if I hadn’t caught the incurable disease from him in the early ’50s. I smiled to myself as I thought of ol’ Juju and wondered if he, too, was sitting atop a mountain this day, perhaps with his son, young Jimmy. Or alone, chilled, and filled with the “abdominal birds of anticipation” like I was.
I could see the forest floor, covered in mayapples and maple shoots – zillions of them – and realized they would impede my sight of a sneaking gobbler. As I eased out to find a better vantage point, a gobbler pierced the morning tranquility. I froze in mid-stride, like a cat stalking a mouse. Thinking quickly I moved several yards, sat, and set up.
Two more birds bellowed from several hundred yards away, but I knew the initial eruption was from the Monarch, and that he was nearby. I waited a few moments and then let out a tender tree yelp on my Quaker Boy. Barely audible, but the old boy gobbled, seemingly enraged with a hen in the neighborhood that he didn’t know about. I heard him again, but he was headed west, away from me. I presumed he was gathering hens. My heart dropped, but I got up once again and pushed my weary body toward his unrelenting gobbles, trying to get ahead of him and set up again. About 45 minutes later, with the season closing fast, I was ready to set up.
As I went to position myself beneath a large oak, I slipped, and my box call slammed against a smaller tree, sounding like nothing wild. I called myself a few choice names and wondered if I had blown my chance. I sat and gathered my thoughts and then began my walk around the bench that would take me around the mountain. I could scarcely hear the bird off in the distance, but it did remind me of how much I love spring turkey hunting.
I got to a favorite spot on the mountain, a place I refer to as “Little Jeff’s Meadow,” for a young friend I had mentored in the ways of deer hunting. I sounded off with my homemade cigar tube caller, and then purred on the Quaker Boy. The Grand Duke answered, 200 yards off, and my stomach seemed to float from the “lagoon” of my body. I sat unnerved against a slashing of archaic grapevines. I slid down my face net, adjusted my glasses, took the deepest breath of my life and prayed. The prayed some more.
I waited, but the gobbler never made another sound. He’s coming in quietly, I thought, and I wondered if he could hear my heart beating. A moment later I heard a putt, putt, putt behind me, and then I made the worst of hunting mistakes – I moved, albeit ever so slightly, to look to my left, and three turkeys burst into the air like jet fighters. I was ill again. I figured they had spooked the big tom, but I was wrong. The bird hadn’t spotted my blunder, though, as I noticed slight movement in the mayapples. He was still coming, silently. I was shocked, and could only conclude he thought the sound of the flushing wings were incoming hens.
In the seconds I sat there, I remembered my earlier prayer, and then prayed again, just for a glimpse of the old bird. My prayers were answered, as his crimson head peeked through the high undergrowth at the edge of a clearing. He must have spotted something he didn’t like, though, because he streaked across the clearing like he’d been scalded, giving me no time for a shot.
I sat there disheartened, but only a little. My prayer to see him had been answered. I could hear him gobbling from far off, but decided there wasn’t time to get ahead of him and set up again. My season was over – forever. I felt tired, my old heart straining under the exertion of the hunt.
The next morning I sat on the front porch and found myself scrutinizing the old mountain across the road. I’d spent countless hours on that hillside and on those beautiful hardwood benches. I laughed as I remembered something I told my wife prior to that last hunt: “Sweetheart, there is but a single creature in the world more beautiful than you and that, my dear, is a spring gobbler in full strut.” She mentioned something about turkeys being repulsive, but I reassured her that they were gorgeous to my old eyes. I sat there feeling not just a little empty, sipping my tea, when I heard the boisterous, almost defiant, gobbling of the mountain’s main monarch, the gobbler of all gobblers.
That evening, I again sat alone, watching the sunset when I heard my gracious adversary again. There was just a delicate glistening, perhaps tears, in my tired eyes as I looked toward the setting sun and thought how befitting a captivating sunset was to my gray mood. When the old boy gobbled again, I whispered in response, “Never again will I carry the guns of autumn to that old mountain, old-timer, so, with my most passionate blessing, go in peace. I thank you from my tired but full heart, for the glorious times we challenged one another.”