Chasing Merriam's in the Missouri River Breaks of Montana

I have spent the last decade traveling to hunt in some form or another. Whether on photo or video assignment, or, more preferably, on some adventure of my own concoction. Every new trip adds to the overflowing bucket of memories and experiences that only come from doing things in new places.

A good friend of mine had been inviting me to his Montana wall-tent turkey camp every year for the five previous, but it always seemed as though other plans got in the way. Finally, in the spring of 2022 I made sure I had the dates marked down way ahead of time to ensure I could be there.

As I hit the interstate heading west, the tires under the van howled against the concrete, and as the noise droned on, I couldn’t help but daydream about white-tipped fans and high-pitched gobbles bouncing between canyons in breaks country.

Not only do these little dinosaurs cover tons of country, they’re also incredibly vocal. However, unlike the Eastern birds that absolutely rock the hardwoods with a hammer of a gobble, the Merriam’s sounds more like a yodeler going through puberty. It is still a turkey gobble alright, but noticeably different than birds in other parts of the country. Their gobble carries a long way, and you really need to focus to key in on where it’s coming from because it’ll bounce in between ridges seemingly surrounding you. More than once I have been convinced that a gobble is coming from one direction only to be caught off guard by a bird in a different locale.

After some 12 hours throttling down the road, I pulled into camp just in time to set up and still have enough daylight to get a quick evening scouting mission in. One of my favorite tactics, especially when hunting birds in the West, is to forego an evening hunt to just cover ground and roost birds. Because Merriam’s don’t always go back to roost in the same spot every night, it is better to have a place to start off the day than be hoping something will come back to where it was roosting the day before. This year’s camp was a big one with about 15 people total, so we all split into groups to keep the number of vehicles roaming the backroads to a minimum. I hopped in the truck with two of my good friends, Zach Sandau and Dylan Dowson, and we took off to try and put eyes or ears on a strutter or two.

We covered a lot of ground and stopped every so often to listen and owl hoot to try and evoke a shock gobble. We put ears on birds in a couple locations which meant we at least had a starting point the following morning. Back at camp, spirits were high as a couple members of the crew had successful hunts that day—meaning fresh meat in camp for fried turkey nuggets, marinated turkey-breast kabobs, and protein for a pizza topping. Also, it broke the ice which boosted morale for everyone else.

DAY 1

In position well before daybreak would NOT describe our first morning’s hunt. There was coffee to be made, last-minute gear items forgotten, and an all-around relaxed ease into the hunt. Still early enough in the cool April morning for birds to be gobbling, we struck off in the direction of where we had left a few toms the night before.

Just seconds after we pulled up on the first listening knob, we heard a distant gobble. It was on. With packs and turkey vests on, shotguns checked for shells, and calls at the ready, we hurried toward the sound of that first bird hammering on a distant ridge. In an effort to conceal our approach, we moved along what we figured was the opposite side of the spine from where the bird was. Moving as quickly as we could while still being quiet, we tried to keep track of the bird as he kept gobbling periodically. When we were within earshot of him, we set up and started to call.

Silence. Deafening silence. Anyone that turkey hunts a fair amount has been in this situation more than they’ll ever admit. Either our calling wasn’t what he wanted to hear, or we had pushed in too hard, too fast and spooked him out before we got into position. Off to bird location number two. Trying to learn from our earlier mistake, this round we moved slowly and methodically toward the second bird. However, as I said earlier, the gobbles bounce around on the ridges and trees and even though we had him talking, we overestimated how far he was and bumped him. Strike two.

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I would like to say that the third time was the charm, but we proceeded to get beat all day. All we did was cover lots of ground—both with the truck tires and boot rubber. We spent the evening listening and striking up birds to make sure we had a game plan for the morning. Back in camp, it was another round of high fives and celebration for a couple more people that had found success.

DAY 2

After getting everything dialed, we took off into similar territory to try and get one to read the script. The first half of day two unfolded much the same as day one. Birds would start to get fired up only to go quiet, or minor missteps or bad choices led to a bumped bird. The grand finale of the morning: watching one bird escape by walking to and pitching off the highest bluff in the whole county. As far as we can tell, he still may be flying to this day. That encounter led to far more laughter than frustration.

The wind also picked up substantially through the morning which was making it hard to hear anything even if it was talking. We opted to head for a midday break at camp. After looking at maps, the game plan for the rest of the day was to get to a spot to both glass and listen, thinking we could put eyes on birds first and then make a move. We were getting ready to head out for the evening hunt and Trevor, one of the other guys in camp that had filled his tag earlier, hopped in with us as well so we could split into groups of two. Zach and I set off to a high spot to glass and listen, and Dylan and Trevor went off in the other drainage to do the same. Situated in a spot about a half mile from the truck, we figured we could either see or hear birds below us. After about 45 minutes, there was a lull in the wind.

I used the calm to try and strike up a bird. I scratched on a slate call and waited. The first gobble seemed more like a figment of the imagination—one of those where you hear things just because you want to, not because it’s actually there. I hit the call again to attempt to confirm or deny. There it was again, and both Zach and I heard it. The bird was fired up, gobbling every few seconds, but he was a long, long way off. We made a run for it to try and cut the distance before he quit talking. Before making the move, we marked his location on onX and hurried to the next small ridge past the pin where we moved up. It was a good spot to call him over the top, if he was still there, and I let out a call to try and pinpoint him. He gobbled back immediately—except he was halfway back to where we had started our sprint!

We had crossed right below him while he was on his way to meet up with the lonesome hen he thought he heard on our listening knob. We took off once more, back in his direction, him hammering all the way, but then something unexpected happened. The tom made a 90-degree turn up a side drainage instead of staying on the same heading. This seemed like the perfect opportunity for us to sneak up the off side of the ridge and get close to him again, until…BOOM!

As we crested the ridge, we saw Dylan and Trevor about 400 yards up on the opposite side of a small draw celebrating. We met up with them, and it turns out, they had heard the same distant gobble when I struck up the bird and had moved in slowly to investigate just how far away he was. As Zach, me and the tom were criss-crossing paths, the bird had walked right below their location. They made a few calls, and he came right in, putting on a show the whole time before offering a perfect shot. Dylan tried to apologize for “short stopping” the bird, but I couldn’t have been more pumped.

Dylan tagged the bird and we all hiked back to the truck. It was still about two hours before dark but that had been a successful day, so we drove back to camp instead of scouting. Not even five minutes into our drive down a two-track, we spotted a small flock of birds, with one big tom in full strut, in the distance. The birds were in a perfect spot to get into position for a potentially easy calling scenario.

Zach and I scrambled out of the truck with just a shotgun and a few calls and made a move. They were a ways off but not moving fast so we looped around and snuck up through the trees on the backside of the knob between us and the flock and quickly set up. Zach made a few soft calls from behind me and it was just enough to turn the flock to wander in to investigate. The tom was still at the back, and he gave me just enough time to squeeze off a shot before they bolted. And just like that, two gobblers got a ride back to camp.

DAY 3

Day three started with a substitution in the truck and our buddy Matt hopped in with us as Trevor had to head home after filling his tag. We set off down a two-track into new country. It was a calm morning, and we could hear a bird gobbling. We decided to send Matt and Zach down into a bottom to get into position on the bird. Dylan and I sat back to watch from a distance. The guys got into position and started calling and three birds fired off in different directions, but they all started to close the distance. This seemed like the perfect situation, but all of the toms found each other a ridge short of the guns, quit gobbling, and moved off.

We made a big loop around them to try calling from the other side. We snuck in clean, got into position and set up. Zach was on the gun and Dylan and I were calling. Matt had held back further up the ridge to watch the exits. At first, nothing, just silence. We yelped every few minutes just to keep the noise going and sure enough, just on the other side of a tangle, one of the toms hammered. When they do it that close, it sends a shockwave through your heart. Dylan let out a few more soft calls and we all expected the bird to walk through the opening in front of us, but instead, that tom came in on a dead sprint to five yards. He spotted the three of us, and as surprised as he was, Zach swung to make the shot, missing clean as the tom’s head bobbed and weaved in escape mode. It is always a heartbreaker to miss, but an awesome encounter all the same.

There was a big weather system moving in later that day that was supposed to drop over an inch of rain, and if you know anything about clay Montana roads after a storm, you know it's typically better to already be gone. But we had a few hours yet to hunt so we made a huge loop on the gravel roads stopping anywhere that looked like we might strike up a bird. It took the better part of those three hours we had left to get a bird to talk back, but he gobbled hard. After several set ups and repositions, it all finally fell into place. Both Zach and Matt were in the shooting positions and the tom worked into Matt’s shooting lane, capping off an incredible few days in the turkey woods.

We drove as quickly as we could back to camp and we weren’t the only ones in the crew that had been keeping a close eye on the weather. There was nothing but the sound of tent poles clanging and trucks being loaded in an efficient fashion. We all said our goodbyes and hit the road in a convoy of camp rigs back towards pavement where we would scatter in the storm's wind back to our homes around the country. With tags notched and friends all in good spirits, I can’t picture a better end to turkey camp.