Taking Charge of Gobblers

It's a long way from Montana to Missouri. I was on the last leg of a very long turkey hunt that had brought me to several states, and I was in the throes of late-season exhaustion that only a dedicated turkey hunter can fully understand. By the time I got to camp, I was in no mood to be manipulated by "guide speak."

Most guides must have studied the same playbook. You can predict what they are going to tell you before you even get your gear unpacked. They always have some giant, horny tom roosted all by himself--no hens within a three-county radius. It's always in a place that "nobody had hunted all year, because I've been saving it for you."

Usually daylight finds you in a blind with a wide path worn to it and the floor littered with candy bar wrappers and soda cans. The turkey, if he even exists, runs off in a panic at the first yelp of a turkey call. You might hear a gobble or two, but on the neighbor's property, never anywhere close to land you can hunt.

But Mark Drury and I have been buddies a long time. We have hunted turkeys together in a lot of places and he has guided me to several big toms. Some I killed, some I screwed up, but Mark has always held up his end of the deal. So when he told me that he had a big gobbler "right where we want him," I actually believed him.

I heard the story over a late supper. It turns out that Mark--world champion turkey caller and the founder of MAD calls--and his brother Terry had been out roosting birds that evening and heard gobbling near a roost area. It was only about 30 minutes before sunset, and because most turkeys fly up to the tree within the first 15 minutes after sunset it was a good bet that these turkeys were planning to spend the night where they were.

The problem was that their "bedding trees" were off the property we could hunt. Sure, we could set up near the property line in the morning and hope to call the birds to us, but they were gobbling pretty well, so Mark and Terry decided to try to "prepare" those turkeys instead.

The toms responded to their calls, so the brothers picked up the pace a little and started to back off into the property we could hunt. Once they had the toms moving, they toned down the level of calling a bit and maintained the chatter just enough to "control" the toms and keep them moving in their direction. Mark and Terry moved ahead of the turkeys fast enough to keep a couple hundred yards between them.

At one point the birds were so hot to catch the "hens" that the Drury boys had to run across a small clearing to keep from being spotted by the rapidly approaching turkeys.

Mark and Terry moved through a stand of big trees that was well onto the property and a known roost site. It was also a place that allowed easy and quiet access in the morning. The logical place for flying down led naturally to a point of land in the hardwoods that would make a perfect calling location close to the roost trees.