All henned up
Jeryl Jones henned up turkey hunting
VIOLONIA, Ark. — The old gobblers beard was swinging like the pendulum on Mammy's old Grandfather Clock, when he galloped the last 100 yards to where I was hidden in a grown-up fencerow.
It's funny how you notice that kind of thing. He raced into my calling like he was on a leash, and made this hunt look ridiculously easy. But I knew better.
I had been listening to this big bird gobble for two and a half hours that morning, and had made several moves on him, trying to keep up with his whereabouts and awaiting my opportunity. That's the way it is with henned-up gobblers. They can be extremely tough or exceedingly easy. And you have a lot of say about how the story ends.
Last Wednesday's hunt started on a sour note. The dawn was gorgeous, but I never heard a peep from a turkey off the roost. I waited until after fly-down time watching the pasture alongside a preferred roost site. After I was satisfied that the roost was empty that morning, I left and went looking for a turkey that might gobble.
As I made my way at a snails pace through the thick river cane, the turkey was getting hotter and hotter. By the time I had crawled within 10 feet of the field edge and settled in against a big hackberry tree, he must have been gobbling every 10 seconds or so.
My binoculars showed three hens going about their morning business and ignoring all of his amorous advances. The big gobbler was pirouetting and strutting and letting the whole world know who was boss. The hens kept him busy by wandering off and he'd hustle over to make sure they didn't stray far.
I tried a couple of soft yelps just to test his mood. They drew immediate gobbles but he showed no inclination to give up his hens and look my way. The hens also seemed uninterested. A shrill cut brought about the same result, so with plenty of time and patience to spare, I settled back to watch the show.
And what a show. Over the course of the next hour, I watched him breed with the hens a couple of different times, and watched as one of his hens departed for her nest.
One down and two to go.
It was terribly tempting to call at them, but I knew that time was on my side and patience was my best friend. As they say, this was a marathon, not a sprint.
The remaining trio crossed a narrow fencerow into the next pasture and I had to fall back and make a big circle to get to another observation spot.
It was now about 8:30 and as I was circumventing the turkeys, my telephone vibrated. Now, I normally won't pick up the phone for just anyone during a turkey hunt, but it was Steve Bowman, long-time friend and editor of this website. I knew he had been chasing one cagy old bird on his duck club for several days, and I wanted to know if he'd finally scored, so I answered in a whisper. Steve had no such luck that morning, and was on his way back to the office.
I replied, "Come on if you want to, but I don't think there's any way that I can explain to you how to find me." "All right," Bowman said, "but call me back and let me know what is happening."
It wasn't hard to know where my turkeys were. His incessant gobbling made it very easy to keep track of his movements. I watched from the creek bank as they sidled across the field and down into a little low spot. They stayed out of my sight for 30 minutes, but he continued to gobble several times every minute. The only other sound was the vibration of my phone.
"What's he doing now?" Bowman whispered, even though he was 50 miles away.
"I think he's down to one hen and he's gobbling with every step,'' I said. "It won't be long, now."
"Well keep me posted,'' Bowman said. "If I have to be in this office, you could at least keep me posted every few minutes."
I hung up, not expecting that the next few minutes would play out so quick.
I followed the sound of his gobbling into the creek bottom and into the pasture on my side of the creek. When he finally got within sight, he was all alone, and I knew it was time for me to go to work.
The rest of the hunt was so outlandishly simple that it's really humdrum. I made about four or five quiet yelps from the fencerow, and he double-gobbled. One shrill cutt, and he began running straight at me in that ungraceful, wobbling lope with his beard waving to and fro.
I looked at my watch and it was 9:20 a.m. I had been tracking this gobbler for exactly two and a half hours, and had only called at him twice. The first time I called, I knew it was futile, and the second time, I was confident that he'd soon be mine.
It was an absolute classic case of playing a henned-up gobbler. Knowing when to call, having patience, and resisting the temptation to call at him unnecessarily were the keys to fooling this tom.
I used my camera-phone to take some photos on a big rock outcropping near the creek, and immediately sent one to Bowman as a little "I told you so."
He sent his reply by return text. "I expect a good story."
Henned-up gobblers aren't a lost cause. I don't know how many times I've heard a tom gobble from the exact spot where I had been calling earlier in the morning. Most of the time, it was a gobbler that was with hens early in the morning, and came looking for that forlorn hen once he found himself lonely. With a little patience and restraint, you can take advantage of this behavior.
As an interesting side note, this 21-pound gobbler with a 10-inch beard didn't have a sign of a spur on either leg. Not even a bump where the spurs should have been. This is the second spur-less gobbler that I've killed in the past few years, and they were about 100 miles apart. But it was the first one where I actually got to give a play-by-play to a one-man audience 50 miles from me.
