Lifting The Curse

They say the Merriam's turkey is the easiest to hunt of the four subspecies that make up the so-called grand slam. Yeah, well, "they" say a lot of things.

My first Merriam's trip was spent in a Motel 6 in Rapid City, South Dakota. By that I don't mean we stayed there as our base of operations. We spent it there because a late spring blizzard drove us from our tents in the Black Hills and led the state to close all the roads. My brother chain-smoked cigarettes as we watched a "Once Upon A Time in the West" movie marathon. Two days later the roads opened, and brother Jim, my dad and his buddy Paul and I ventured back into the Hills, where we hunted in nearly two feet of snow, strong winds and 20-degree temperatures. We didn't kill a turkey.

A few years later I talked Dad and Jim into joining me in northeast Wyoming. The first morning we called to a tom that came in so fast we were still standing around deciding where we'd heard the gobble when it ran into view. Strike one. Half an hour later a boisterous gobbler skirted my brother just a little too far away as I called from behind him. Strike two. Next, a fired-up tom came in on a rope but swung wide around my dad, hung up behind us for nearly an hour, then walked back past Dad, who missed. Strike three.

That evening I finally called a bird to within range, and my brother scored. Then the weather changed to snow, rain and wind, and while Dad and I did bring in birds, we couldn't find a mature gobbler and went home empty-handed.

So last year, hunting near Newcastle, Wyoming, with Wyoming Wilderness Outfitters guide Roger Dubs, I figured I'd paid my dues and would finally get a chance to experience the "easy" Merriam's I'd heard so much about. And deep down I had to admit that I was looking forward to completing my grand slam--though nowadays a slam is almost passé unless you do it with a slingshot.

The first morning I found myself hiking up a short, steep ridge in the dark. As the light grew, I drank in the beauty of the eastern Wyoming hills and waited to hear the first gobble. And I waited, and waited, and waited. Roger had assured me there were birds roosted in the area, so I jogged back and forth along the knife-sharp ridge, blowing owl calls, crow calls, coyote calls, hawk calls--every locator I had in my vest. Zip. I decided to quit fooling around and popped a double-reed diaphragm into my mouth and started cutting, cackling and yelping. Eventually I got an answer--from posted land I couldn't hunt.