7:00 p.m. March 13th, 2020:
There is a common lull for guys who enjoy chasing birds through the winter and spring. When the ducks and geese have left, there isn’t much to do between seasons. Too cold to fish or play golf, so we go about our lives at this time constantly waiting for the next season.
For the Mississippi guys like myself, the next season rolls around March 14th. Opening day of turkey season. This is a day heralded by many in the south. The woods are coming alive again, our grass is turning green, the sun is coming out for the first time in what seems to be an eternity. We find ourselves itching not for the squeeze of the trigger — but to hear the choir songs of long beard gobblers singing in a cathedral of hardwood bottoms.
This year I had the privilege of following along a well seasoned father and son duo on their family farm, a long lived tradition ever since Peyton was a young boy. Unsurprisingly, I was excited for opening day myself as well as having this opportunity. I left the house around 4:50 a.m., drove an hour and after passing the correct gate about 4 or 5 times – my headlights hit the lodge of the Adams family property. I opened the door and was met by the wet nose of a duck dog and a hand shake from Peyton.
We loaded the electric ranger well before daylight and slipped off into the woods as quiet as we could be. I was riding in the back seat, and after a few hill tops and valleys the ranger came to a stop. Peyton and his dad crept out and whispered “We got a while but he’s a few hundred yards that way”. I unloaded my cameras with the constant thought of ‘I hope I have enough light to get this on camera’ – constant battle of the best killing time is typically the worst filming or photography time.
He did just that and bellowed a convincing owl call through the woods – with absolutely zero response from a gobbler. Little did we know, this would be a common occurrence throughout the morning. We all stood up and walked away down a pine straw covered road, and every few hundred yards they would do their owl calling routine.
This routine is the product of years of hunting together, no instruction was needed from either party. Peyton would give a 4 note howl, shortly responded by his father in a low slower howl. In the midst of his dad calling, Peyton would do somewhat of a “laughing owl” call, it was synchronized. Once again, a pattern had emerged. Not only did a gobbler NOT respond, but I learned these two men were a well-oiled killing machine.
There were few words uttered in the first hour of hunting, just calling and a few hand motions. Yet each hunter knew exactly what they were doing, when and why they were doing it. They knew each other’s thoughts. As we began to move along through the woods, Peyton slipped up ahead to listen to a hen that had begun yelping a good way off. Me and his dad “Big Wave” as he is called by some, stayed back.
His dad started whispering “When he was 14….” and he began telling me how much of a natural hunter his son was and without saying so, why he trusted and knew what his son was up to when they hunted together. “He came in one afternoon and said ‘Dad if you’ll just do exactly what I say, we’ll both kill a bird tomorrow” I smiled in somewhat disbelief of a 14-year-old having the know-how to double up – but I also know that Peyton is quite the outdoorsman. Just before he finished his story Peyton signaled for us to come, he thought he had heard a gobble on the northwest corner of the property we were hunting.
They plotted a plan with one caveat, that turkey was on the highest point on the property and across a creek. If you turkey hunt much, you’ll know that creeks aren’t good for business. Either way, we had made it this far and we set up just on the other side of the road. Peyton on the left, dad on the right and I was back about 15 yards in the middle of both of them.
Peyton has the decoy dead center of the road to be easily seen by the turkey if he wanted to come out and flirt. It was 9:40 a.m., Peyton yelped with a mouth call and his dad followed up with a soft yelp on a slate call. Again, the machine thing. The gobbler answered once more, he was definitely on the ground, and definitely across the creek. He had moved down to our right a few hundred yards when a hen began yelping to our left. 9:50 a.m., nothing but silence until maybe a minute or two later, here comes that long beard. He pitched off the hill and flew the creek, and the second he saw that decoy – he put his runnin’ shoes on.
He got 15 yards from the decoy, and just before I could get my camera zoomed in… The first shot popped off. Peyton may have been a bit excited, but his dad was there to back him up. The second shot rang off, and the turkey hadn’t slowed down a bit. Peyton stood up took another shot, and struck out on foot. If you’ve never seen a white boy from Mississippi run through the woods after a turkey, let me tell you – we can move.
One last shotgun shell was fired, shortly followed by a “LETSSSS GOOOOO”. And that was it, the hunt was over and the celebration began. His dad and I caught up with him about 60 yards in the woods and there stood Peyton over a dead turkey. The high fives went around as did the smiles and the pictures. The turkey died at 9:59 a.m. we brought it back to the lodge and hung up for a few more pictures to finish off the morning.
While it wasn’t the hunt we had anticipated, it was a blast. Quite frankly, I’m glad it wasn’t. If it had been one of those epic mornings that you hear about “I shot him as soon as his feet hit the ground”, I don’t think it would have been a good story. And to me, and this company, that’s what it’s really about. You can’t put the breath back in that bird, and you can’t replicate what went on that morning. But you can tell the story, and have pictures to prove it. There’s a story in every hunt and I’m glad I was there to document this one.
Document Your Adventure
