Song Dog Savvy

This may sound egomaniacal, but I'm going to say it just so you understand where I'm coming from. I've done and seen a lot over the years, hunting-wise. I've killed a turkey grand slam in a single season and wrapped my tag around the antlers of more than one dandy Iowa whitetail. I've gunned sea ducks from Maine's rock ledges and from Washington's layout boats. I've hunted red fox by moonlight and wild Texas hogs with a .44 Magnum revolver. Pintails, blacktails, sharptails, bushytails... I'll stop short of saying "I've seen it all," but I've done a bunch.

So tell me why I found myself sitting against an old oak, shaking like a seventeen-year-old at the doorstep on prom night waiting to meet the Old Man for the first time?

Perhaps I should back up a little.

It was early December in eastern Iowa, and I decided to head out in the snow for the final day of our fall turkey season. With gun and vest in hand, as a last thought, I threw my lanyard of predator calls around my neck. "You never know," I told my wife, Julie, when she asked.

My bird, a hen, came relatively easily. With binoculars, I found a big flock, fifty turkeys strong, picking at the edge of a cornfield. A little maneuvering to get into position, and I dropped the hammer on the first one to wander by. I quickly signed my tag, wrapped it around her scaly leg and packed things up for the walk back to the truck. Halfway there, a coyote howled--not once or twice, but three times. I thought it odd that he would be close despite my having just shot, and it was 10:30 in the morning. What he was doing out running at that time of day, I didn't know. I assumed it had something to do with his stomach--it usually does. So I figured, What the heck? I shed my vest, found a comfortable seat alongside a big oak just inside a fenceline and got myself covered up again.

The first series of squeals got nothing, and neither did the second or third. But as I dropped the call to my chest after the fourth blast, I heard footsteps in the brittle snow below me--and there he was. That's when the shakes started.

So I'm sitting there, laughing nearly out loud and asking myself, Just how in the heck am I going to shoot this thing? It's strange, things you consider under duress. But I had the gun up just like I was waiting on a gobbler when the footsteps stopped. Not wanting to move, I pursed my lips and gave a quiet squeak--and there he came, directly to me.

It's a slam dunk, I was thinking. The gun's up, hammer's back and he's not twenty steps in front of me. Well, that's when Old Murphy stepped up to the plate.