Kings of Spring

Spring. One of my favorite times of year. The snow melts off, the temperatures rise, the flowers bloom, and the turkeys begin to gobble!

I look forward to hunting spring turkeys as much as I look forward to hunting rutting whitetails. Heck, maybe more! One thing about hunting gobblers is, you can find them in fields quite often, and you can (typically) hear a response to your calls. That's usually not the case with whitetails, at least mature bucks!

The excitement with turkeys starts with the first gobble and continues, increasing, as the bird appears and approachs your set up. Sometimes they come in silently though, you just have to be ready 100% of the time!

This year I started turkey hunting with a relatively new friend of mine, George Kuhns. While I have plenty of friends that would like to shoot a bird, most aren't into it as much as I am. George is.

We made a pact this winter that we'd hunt together as much as possible and try to get a few kills on video if we could too. On top of that, we wanted to try and get his mom her first bird and I wanted to get one with my bow. He and I ALSO sent in for extra tags, allowing us to each take 2 bearded birds.

After seeing turkeys virtually everywhere we looked for them, April 26th FINALLY rolled around and our spring season was underway!

We started off opening morning with Mama Kuhns (George's mom) and him in my ground blind, and me directly behind them filming. We set up in a small field behind her house where she'd been seeing birds nearly every day for weeks. Of course, they avoided us (we never heard a peep or saw them at all) that day (and every other time we tried hunting them for that matter).

About 9 a.m., we decided to wrap it up there and George and I scooted over to another property to "run and gun", before the thunderstorm on the horizon got to us. As it looked like it was going to rain imminently, we left the video camera in the truck.

After covering a solid mile, while calling every 50 yards or so, depending on terrain, and breaking out every trick in the book from aggressive cutting, to soft clucks and purrs, coupled with leaf raking, we were about as frustrated as we could get. We knew this property held birds, fresh sign was everywhere, but we couldn't raise a single gobble!

I'd just told George that this was the first time in 4 years I hadn't had the opportunity to take a longbeard on opening day, when a bird gobbled out ahead of us! We both hit the dirt in the trail as we'd just crested a hill, and it sounded like the bird was in the field ahead of us, which the trail led directly to.

I slide out my aluminum pot and peg call, and cutt at the tom. He IMMEDIATELY answered! George crawls back behind us about 10 yards and sets up a hen decoy in the middle of the trail. We both ease over to a large tree about 10 yards off the trail that will conceal us and sit down.

As we settle in against the tree, I cutt to the gobbler and he again immediately answers and sounds closer. One more time I call and he hammers back. I wait a few seconds and he gobbles again on his own, DEFINITELY closer! He's coming!

After a minute or so, George tells me to call one more time. As soon as I cutt, the tom answers; he's not far out of sight, coming up the trail!

Sitting side by side, with both guns pointed in the direction of the approaching gobbler, George quietly whispers "I see him. He's right behind that blowdown on the trail edge." I pick up on the bird's red head through the brush as he scopes out our decoy.

He's within range but instead of going straight ahead to the "hen", he decides to cut into the hemlock grove we're sitting in, to skirt around us. It's too thick to chance letting him go too far, so I tell George "When he goes behind that big tree, I'm going to move my gun, and when he comes out, I'm going to shoot him." Out of the corner of my eye I see George's left hand slide to the ground.

Slowly stepping along, scrutinizing everything, the tom disappears behind the tree and I make my move. I slide the gun over, bury my cheek on the stock and prepare to shoot. Just as the gobbler steps into a clear shooting lane, George scratches the leaves and the tom stops and stretches his neck and head up to get a better look at where the sound came from. I settle the bead on his neck and press the trigger and the first "King of the Spring" crumples into the leaves!
After the handshakes, we get out the camera and snap some pictures to remember the hunt by. It's getting warm out, and that thunderstorm that was "imminent" never materialized, as the sun came out. It was a long, hot walk but, with a big turkey on my back, it was worth every step!

Sporting a 10.5" beard, 7/8" spurs, and weighing 20 lbs, 3 oz, our first bird had us off to a good start of the spring!