A Lurky turkey, wife, & widow

F

freebullet

Guest
Some years back a trapper friend asked for a hand in removing a dilapidated shed on an old widows property, an acreage just north of town. We brought out the dump truck & helped clean up the place. Sprayed weeds, fixed her mower, ect.

Helped her a little more next spring/summer.

An invitation to turkey hunt was granted. The place was lousy with them. She was getting to many tearing up everything. It wasn't challenging enough for my taste, but I had an inexperienced turkey hunting wife, so...

I pop up a ground blind in a good spot. We watch the sun come up, turkey coming in, beautiful fall morning. By 8am we were surrounded by small turkey. The wife with her 410 over anxious not wanting to wait. Little did she know I spotted some bigger birds working their way down inside the wood line. The little ones are brushing up against the blind then one hops right on the blind window, thought the wife was guna have a heart attack.

After it hopped down from the unstable window perch &.the wife could breathe again I informed her the bigger one would be coming up over a 12' berm behind us. She prepared for her moment & boom the little 410 rolled the nice bird back down that berm with a perfect head/neck shot. The turkey scatter we recover it. Grabbed my cam out of car for photo op, & wait, what is that...wife sitting in front of tree with gun & bird for pix.

Back over her shoulder I see something. I don't say anything to the wife about it. I just stood silent pretending to have an issue with the camera. Snapped a few pix unbeknownst to her. Having the camera issue annoyed the wife whose leg is falling asleep so , could I kindly figure it out so she can get up...hun take a look to the left. o_O

An even bigger bird comes waddling over, beard dragging ground. The wife' eyes are as large as I'd ever seen at this point. She turns lowers her 410 says "can i?" I say well you can try but it'll be hard with the shells in the car where I left them.

Many lessons learned that day on all sides. The turkey finally wandered off & I have pics of the butterball waddling down the hill, sneaking up from behind the wife within 10-15yds for the viewing of his fallin brother.

I'l try to post the pix later. Went on to invite several friends to bring kids out for the first bird hunt. Sadly the lady couldn't keep the farm anymore, & I lost the honey hole.


Hope you all have an enjoyable thanksgiving!
 
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fiver

fiver

Well-Known Member
cool turkey story's.
I guess I can tell one from years back.
this one involves zero shooting.
years and years ago me and the wife and kids were living in a trailer park.
I had just got out of the service and was looking for work and she was working a mostly full time job so needless to say money was a bit tight.
she comes home from work one evening and says I talked to [I don't even remember their name now]
and they have 3 turkeys, they say if we come over and kill and clean them we can have one.

I am not so keen on the idea, knowing that it will be some kind of fiasco, but they are about 75 and there is no way they are gonna be able to do it.
so Saturday rolls around and I grab the hatchet, an 18" length of 2x6, and about a 4' length of 1x2 from our tiny shed.
mind you my total turkey hunting experience is:
I had run some over with my Charger when I was in HS, after they got out of the turkey farm in central Utah, and I caught one for my aunt when I was about 8-9 at another turkey farm in the same area.

after dropping the kids off to grandma's house, and the usual where you going when you comin back questions.
we get there and they point us out in the back yard [5 acres of pasture] and say the three black ones.
I ask how they want them, skinned or plucked, heart, gizzards, etc, and off we go.
we get out there and the place is a small zoo, geese, ducks, goats, a burro, the turkeys some white ones, a couple of peacocks, guinea foul, you get the picture.
they are in the county but not out of town, so I can't just go out there with the 12ga and just roll them over.
it's gonna be a LOOOOOng day.

I grab the 1x2 and walk out there with some food and get them all to follow me to the food bowl.
all 40 birds that is.
anyway I throw some food down and work my way over to one of the turkeys and wind up with the 1x2 and crack it up side the head, jump on it and take it over to the board and chop it's head off.
I hand it to the wife and tell her 'get pluckin' this was your idea.
 
Brad

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
I have learned that the word "just" is never good.

We "just" need to grab them, kill them, and clean them.

Can't we just replace the carpet?

Can't we just remodel the bathroom?

Yep, just is never good.
 
Ian

Ian

Notorious member
Yeah. Three solid 10-hour days on "just build a new book case for the living room", halfway there. I've never hunted turkey, but nearly got a hen through the windshield numerous times from the wild flock that's about halfway between home and work, seems that they fly about 4' off the pavement crossing the highway during the rush hours. There have been more than a few times I was deer or pig hunting on someone else's property and had plenty of chances to pop one, but people are funny about their wild turkey flocks around here if they're lucky enough to have any and don't let anyone shoot them.
 
I

Intheshop

Banned
I helped a contractor friend on parts of his house.The story was that at some point the P.O. had a turkey "farm".How many,how big a facility.... don't know.Just kept hearing,"this used to be a turkey farm".

So,me and helper guy,who was a decent hunter start seeing these things coming around the house.This is when the fun starts.Once past all the box calls,wingbone calls,pcs of slate,diaphragms.... you learn to "cluck" and yelp using your God given talent (your tongue mouth).So,me and helper start cluckin,trying to out do the other based on the tom's responses.

Put it this way..... I don't know who's dumber,us or a dang turkey?#1,turkeys ain't opera singers or critics.Meaning ANY sound produced remotely in the key of yelp, will get a response.Store bought calls are tuned to produce perfect pitch.Yes they are perfect,but not an absolute.

#2,and this can be subjective as well... but a toms response is an involuntary response.Over a cpl week period you'd think the above turkeys would finally say screw it,that ain't a hen?Nope,give him five minutes and he'll respond to the very next cluck.

My mom raised turkeys during the height of the depression.Actually was decent money she said,considering price per # vs effort?But in any case,she would go on and on about how bloomin stupid turkeys are.Their hearing and eyesight are at the top of the food chain,no doubt.But that's it,otherwise dumb as rocks.It wasn't till working that old turkey farm job that it became clear.

My boys all can do very respectable mouth only,calls.BW
 
smokeywolf

smokeywolf

Well-Known Member
Had to make several trips to Sacramento last spring, each time staying at the same hotel, which was surrounded by fields. Fields were home to these guys. Couple of Toms and I think it was 3 hens, plus last time we were there, 4 chicks.

HotelTurkey.jpg
 
Pistolero

Pistolero

Well-Known Member
We raised turkeys a couple of times when I was a teen. They truly are stupid birds, but
the hard part is that they get "attached" to you, come out and get all friendly after you have
fed them for months. Get too much like pets, hard to kill. Oh, and don't be dumb like
we were on the first ones, wait too long to kill them. Hard as heck to deal with a 56 lb turkey, dressed out. Wouldn't
even fit in our small apartment sized stove's oven. Had to split it like a chicken, cooked
1/2 and it was still way too much turkey at a time. Even half a turkey that size was hard
to fit into our small refrigerator - this was in the 60s, before refrigerators got so big. No
way to put a half in the freezer at all, even if it had been empty.

Bill
 
Pistolero

Pistolero

Well-Known Member
We raised turkeys a couple of times when I was a teen. They truly are stupid birds, but
the hard part is that they get "attached" to you, come out and get all friendly after you have
fed them for months. Get too much like pets, hard to kill. Oh, and don't be dumb like
we were on the first ones, hard as heck to deal with a 56 lb turkey, dressed out. Wouldn't
even fit in our small apartment sized stove's oven. Had to split it like a chicken, cooked
1/2 and it was still way too much turkey at a time.

Bill
 
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