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| ISBN-13: | 9781491817377 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | AuthorHouse |
| Publication date: | 10/01/2013 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 5 MB |
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TURKEYS and TALL TALES
By CLARENCE T. HELLUMS
AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2013 Clarence T. HellumsAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4918-1736-0
CHAPTER 1
WHERE IS HE?
Summer 1979 came and it was back to golf with my friend, Don. Now Don and Buck were old friends also, growing up in the same neighborhood and in school together. Don is about two years older than I am and Buck was about 2 years older than Don was. They hunted together and Don and I golfed together. Don was always talking about hunting while we were on the golf course and I came to the deduction that he was a mighty hunter like Buck. Turkey talk was his specialty and I concluded he knew everything there was to know about turkey hunting because rumor had it that Buck definitely knew.
Midway into my second season of turkey hunting Don's wife, Danyle, happened to mention one night "you know Don has never killed a turkey but he keeps on going and hoping". Well this was a total shock but I was determined to rectify that situation. For about three days in a row, I had seen a strutting gobbler off School House Road near where Roy and I had experienced so much success the year before. I had never gotten there in time to setup on that turkey without being seen and I was not sure how he got there each morning.
Thus, I decided to leave the office a little early and roost the big gobbler, which I did. In fact, I stayed until it was dark, saw him fly up into the tree, and heard him "gobble to the roost". When I backed out I found an empty Pepsi can and put it in the road right behind the tree that stood uphill about 30 yards from the tree where he had roosted for the night and I moved a few pine limbs in front of the tree without being seen.
Back at home I called Don, who is a pharmacist, and insisted he turkey hunt with me the next morning and be early. He agreed and showed up at Duncanville Feed and Seed right on time in his new truck that was a birthday present from his mother. We signed out at the clubhouse and were on School House Road while it was still pitch dark. When we came to the Pepsi can in the middle of the road I whispered to him to setup against the tree that I pointed to and where I had moved a few limbs for cover the night before.
Daylight came about 20 minutes later and the redbirds started their morning songs that traditionally alert the turkey hunter that gobble time is approaching. The trusty old owl hooted and the roosted gobbler sounded off. For about 15 minutes, he gobbled in the tree moving from one side of the tree to the other before he flew down. Where he flew was 30 yards to the left of Don's tree. I began to cluck softly from my concealed position about 30 yards up the hill. It did not take much calling because we were slap dab in the middle of his strut zone.
What a beautiful sight. Eastern turkeys strutting in the early morning sunlight are a glorious sight and it had just broken sun over the eastern hill that was devoid of large tall pine trees because of a recent thinning.
That gobbler knew a hen was in the area and he stayed there and gobbled about every two to four minutes thinking she would come off her nest and present herself for some fun and games. This went on for what seemed to me to be hours but in reality was about 45 minutes. He strutted to within 10 yards of Don's tree then backed off and went to my right some 25 yards away all the while in my clear view. I kept thinking that any minute Don would fire and this hunt would be over. No shot came. After a time he began to move down School House Road and I began to aggressively call him back. When he turned, he started strutting again and walked right down that road to within 20 yards of me. Because Don had never killed a turkey I was content to wait on him to get the shot he wanted but could not figure why he had not already closed the deal.
Then it dawned on me that Don might be asleep or worse yet his gun had jammed. At each opportunity when the turkey would turn away, I would whisper as carefully as I could and as loud as I dared to Don "shoot". Finally when I could stand the suspense no longer and nature was dictating another action be taken I yelled "Don, shoot the damn bird!" Then from way down at the bottom of the hill came a response, "Where is he?"
Later my friend would relate that there was a root that had made sitting against the tree I had shown him uncomfortable. When he heard what he thought were hens below him he slid on his backside down the hill to a "better spot". He swears to this day that he never heard a gobble and did not hear me calling.
There are several lessons one should learn from this adventure, not the least of which is to listen and pay attention to what your guide or outfitter is telling you and do what he says. All to often we men think we have the answer to situations in the field and at home and choose to overlook what we have been told or what our spouses advise, at least I know I often have. This happened over 35 years ago but to this day, as if it were yesterday, I can still see that turkey strutting and hear in my head.
"Where is he?"
CHAPTER 2THE SWITCH
W. G. "Bill" Roberts was an instrumential person in the Christian upbringing of my son Chris at Calvary Baptist Church in Tuscaloosa, AL. Bill talked about hunting to my son and all the young boys while in Sunday School classes during those early days I spoke about previously. It was only natural then that the two of us would also talk "turkey" hunting once I became hooked. I encouraged Bill to join Bear Creek Hunting Club and he did. The year was 1981, to my recollection, and we began hunting turkeys together regularly there and later on at Ralph Sportsman Club, in Ralph, Alabama.
About midway through the season, we were stuck on two gobblers off the right side of Center Road. Each morning we would come in two separate trucks, meet at the clubhouse, and then go on in one truck, generally Bill's. I would have to leave the club in time to work at least part of the day as I had become very much like Buck by this time. Well it seemed like no matter what we did those gobblers gave us the slip and we never would even get close to a good setup. Bill would not consider leaving those birds, let alone go hunt another bird and so on and on it went morning after morning for about a week.
As it got close to the end of the season, I decided to do something about the situation. Bill's gobbler would generally fly over the power lines into the next hunting club when he came off the roost. Bill could never get to where he could see this because of how he entered the woods and no amount of my telling him what I saw would ever convince him that that bird had not just dropped down and gone silent. That was one stubborn man.
One afternoon I went back to the club and just sat down under the big pine tree that gobbler roosted in nightly. It was easy to find because of all the droppings around the base of tree. About 6:00 p.m., still within legal hunting hours, hens began calling all around and then here they came up the hill from the power line headed to roost. At the tail end of the procession came the strutting gobbler. When he came in range, I "bushwhacked" him big time! I took him home and cleaned the insides as best I could without it being obvious and then stuck him in a cooler with ice but not enough to freeze him.
I called Bill later that night and persuaded him that we should switch birds the next morning since my gobbler knew my calls and his gobbler knew his and they were not working. I had to leave straight from hunting to get to the office for an appointment (which was true) so the plan was for me to go to the area of Bill's gobbler in my truck. We met while it was still dark and Bill drove his truck down Center Road to where I told him I generally started hunting my gobbler and I drove to where Bill normally parked.
At about the time turkeys start to gobble I shook a gobble tube fiercely about five times and then waited until I heard the other turkey down near Bill gobble. When the gobble came I fired my shotgun up in the air in Bill's general direction, went back to the truck and took the gobbler I shot the night before out of the cooler and the black plastic bag and laid him on the my tailgate. In less than three minutes that Bill Roberts was at my truck. "You, you killed my my turkey", "you killed, you killed my, my turkey". Bill stuttered a little when he got excited and that morning he was not only excited he was plain agitated.
For over thirty years, I never told Bill Roberts what I had done, partly because I was embarrassed after I saw how much it affected him and partly because what I thought was such a funny joke was not something he could laugh about.
In the spring of 2011 while riding to my farm in North Alabama I said to Bill "do you remember the day I shot that gobbler with you at Bear Creek Hunting Club?" hoping he might have forgotten and I could reveal to him what had really happened. His immediate response even though he recently turned 93 years was, "yeah!" "You shot, you shot, my, my turkey"! "I let you talk, talk me into hunting that other bird that couldn't be killed and you took my bird. I'd have killed that bird that morning if it hadn't been for you." I decided not to tell Bill what had happened that afternoon some 30 plus years ago. Sadly, Bill would die of a heart attack on May 8, 2013 while being treated for pneumonia. I was fortunate to spend time with him at the hospital just prior to his death and we talked about turkeys, but I didn't tell him.
The lesson of this story is that there are some things we should not fool, kid or joke our friends about, (but if you know where your gobbler is going to roost at night and you can hunt in the evenings, as we can in Alabama, then hunt that area in the afternoon). You may have to go somewhere else the next morning but you will learn something about the birds behavior in the area by being there of an afternoon.
It is really more fun to hunt turkeys with someone rather than by yourself. Granted, it may be easier and more rewarding at the time to hunt alone, just you against the Tom, but when you reach the point in life that the sand in your hourglass is getting sparse, you always have those memories of times together with good friends. Even though you may not be able to go hunting, you can lie in bed at night when you just cannot get to sleep and relive that hunt.
CHAPTER 3CHAIN SAWS, LOG DECK, TRUCK DOORS AND REDMAN
The next year Bill and I hunted Bear Creek and had reasonable success and as always a good time. Bill had seen turkeys off the Mitt Lary Road in Northport, Alabama, where I owned land and he persuaded me that we needed to hunt there in the big timber before the season ended. Gulf States Paper Corporation had bought the timber and were setup to start cutting. They had pushed off an area for a log deck and begun cutting by the time Bill could convince me to waste a day of turkey hunting elsewhere and go over there.
We went in my truck so the timber cutters would recognize who was in there and we parked in the middle of the log deck. Within minutes of stopping, a turkey began to gobble. Bill grabbed his shotgun and calls and started to the right side of the truck. He was dressed in his turkey hunting "uniform". The new Realtree pattern had just come on the market and would remain popular for many years, until all the new camouflage patterns captured the imagination of the American hunter. The pattern was in a jumpsuit with a jacket and Bill had them. Up until this time, we all wore either our Army green fatigues or the newer Viet Nam version of combat fatigues worn also by Army Reservists such as myself.
Bill would wear that jumpsuit and jacket every time we hunted over the next seven years. I didn't have a new camo pattern outfit just my reserve fatigues (to this day my friend and retired game warden Charles McCray still believes it's the best for the overall turkey season), but I did have a new turkey hunting vest. They had just come out and I was as proud of my vest as Bill was of his Realtree Treebark jump suit. My vest was the greener version of Treebark.
"Bill" I said, "where are you going"? "I'm going to the turkey," he said. "But Bill he's down this way". Three gobbles later Bill was still not convinced and he pronounced that he was going to the right and I could go wherever I thought there was a turkey and off he took. After moving into the general area where the turkey gobbled I set up against a fallen over tree and called. The turkey gobbled one more time and shut up, shut up that is until the chain saws started. Every time one of the cutters got down hard on his saw that bird gobbled and every time he did I called as loud as I could. In about fifteen minutes there he stood in a full strut.
To my recollection, it was the first time I just watched a gobbler in a full strut perform for me without taking the first opportunity to dispatch him to the freezer. Because of that, I can still see the sun shining down that road to the forest opening on that turkey and thinking how beautiful and stupid he was.
Finally, the time came to close the deal and I put him in the back pocket of my new turkey vest where he was hidden from sight. Up until that time I had always used a white twine carrier that either Roy Colburn or my friend Buzzy had given me. It had a handle built onto one end and the corded end you put around the turkeys' feet and then threw him over your shoulder holding on to the handle.
It was a long hot walk up that hill and it must have been 8:00 a.m. before I got to the top. Standing there was Bill Roberts and the superintendent in charge of the cutting. Bill began by questioning me as to why it had taken me so long to quit hunting because you could not hear a turkey once the chain saws started. Then he kept on about a few other issues he had and I said, "Well where's your turkey?" "Well I never heard a thing," he confessed at which I unsnapped the side of the turkey vest and let the gobbler fall at the feet of both Bill and the timber man.
There are several lessons that can be learned from this hunt. Sometimes chain saws will make a gobbler sound off and when that happens call to that gobbler as loud as you can and hope he can hear you. Now that I am the age Bill was on that particular morning, I see the value of taking a young person with good ears along with me and go where he tells me the bird is despite what I think my ears or the Walker Game Ear may say. Older people just do not hear as well and hearing is fifty percent of turkey hunting. I believe the other fifty percent is equally divided between what I will call woodsmanship, turkey calling, proper set-up, shooting ability and most of all among these PATIENCE.
Although Bill and I hunted together often, I could not go with him to his other hunting club, as it was just too far to go and still get to work at a reasonable hour of a morning. I did not always get a pass from the court like Buck.
Bill related that he knew exactly where they were and he called Harvey Edwards to go with him to his other hunting club south of Moundville, near Greensboro. Bill kept telling me I should go with him because he knew just where they roosted and it should be easy to get one. I told him to take Harvey. Thus it was that the two of them went that Friday. On Sunday morning at church, I asked Harvey how the hunt went with Bill.
"Man you'll never believe it!" I got up at 3:00 and drove to near Greensboro with Bill and we went in in the dark. He knew just where they were. As it started to get light Bill pointed to an old dead tree near the edge of a creek and said they were roosted in that tree." "Then what?" I asked.
"As it started to get light Bill pointed and said there they are." The closer I looked the more suspicious they looked. Finally I said to Bill as kindly as I knew how, "Bill those aren't turkeys, they're Buzzards." "You sure?" Bill asked. "I'm positive. I know a turkey and I know what isn't a turkey."
Bill knew of course that Harvey would tell me about it so after he got home he called to tell me first thing. I did not let on to Harvey that I already knew nor did I ever tell him that Bill swore that the Saturday before there were turkeys in that tree. I mentioned to Bill that I had seen very few turkeys roosting in old dead trees but guessed I would look closer from now on.
Robert Perkins was an avid turkey hunter who lived on the edge of the Talladega National Forest and had a privately owned 40-acre tract slap dab in the middle of the Red Line Management area from which you could see portions of Bear Creek Hunting Club. He was in the flooring business and did work for Harvey on occasions and I was the attorney for a man who he moonlighted for on the side. Robert just insisted that Harvey and I come and go turkey hunting with him in the Forest, as he was most familiar with all the land surrounding Bear Creek and actually had another 40-acre tract that bordered the club on the south.
One morning we met Robert at the spot he had directed and left our truck alongside the road not far from where the shooting range now is. The State of Alabama and the Forest Service did not like the fact that Robert would not sell his land into the National Forest and they would lock all the gates leading to his tract. This made all hunters have to walk in since it was posted "No Vehicular Traffic".
(Continues...)
Excerpted from TURKEYS and TALL TALES by CLARENCE T. HELLUMS. Copyright © 2013 Clarence T. Hellums. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
INTRODUCTION, 1,
I. WHERE IS HE?, 8,
II. THE SWITCH, 11,
III. CHAIN SAWS, LOG DECK, TRUCK DOORS AND REDMAN, 14,
IV. THE EASY YELPER, 21,
V. SNAKES, 5,
VI. KEEPER AND PEEPER, 29,
VII. DECOYS, 33,
VIII. BEARS, 36,
IX. GEAR, 43,
X. BEWARE OF BARBED WIRE FENCES, 46,
XI. TAKING IT EASY IN THE AFTERNOON, 51,
XII. DEAD BIRD, 53,
XIII. MISSES, 60,
XIV. JUVENILE COURT, 65,
XV. TURKEY'S DO FUNNY THINGS, 68,
XVI. YOUNG HUNTERS, 70,
XVII. OLD HUNTERS, 74,
XVIII. CONTROL BURNS, 78,
XIV. SEEKING SLAM, 81,
TIPS AND TACTICS ON BEING SUCESSFUL IN A NO GOBBLE YEAR, 95,
THE LAST LESSON, 100,