A Comedy of Errors
Every experience is a new experience and every experience can be a learning experience.
It was an early May morning in 2017, and my friend Steve and I were heading up to my recently built hunt camp in northern Ontario. Recent can also be used to describe when Steve and I had started hunting. We had one turkey hunt worth of experience between us, so truly no idea what we were doing. I was grateful for Steve’s company as it's always nice having a buddy willing to slosh through muddy fields and scratch a few calls at some gobblers, which for some baffling reason, not all my friends were up for.
The plan was to hunt a friend's family farm located about a half hour from our cabin. Any number of painters would have loved to open their easels on the farm and set to work as the landscape was the sort of idyllic rural dream of rolling pastures broken up with islands of hardwoods. Illuminated by the rising sun, the low hanging fog would stick to the gullies like whip cream to a spoon. I had been fortunate to have access to the same property the previous year but struck out despite seeing lots of birds and hearing lots of gobbles. I was encouraged by last year’s sightings and had a boastful yet fragile confidence built by hours upon hours of research on YouTube, podcasts, and Facebook groups. For a guy who had never really hunted turkeys before, with no mentor to speak of, I was as ready as I was ever going to be.
As host, I felt an obligation to make Steve's experience as memorable as possible and it was one of the first hunts out of the new cabin and property. I figured if he had a good time then he’ll be eager to tag along on future adventures which in turn would make all the money and effort to create the cabin worthwhile. That meant I kept the music, food and drinks flowing well into the night. Shortly before we finally retired, and for about the 4th time, my obsessive compulsive ADHD driven brain sent me out to the car to make sure the trunk was packed; blinds, decoys, food and whatever else we needed was ready to go for the morning.
An absurdly short time later, the wailing of my many alarms “BEEP BEEP BEEP” rang out, seemingly indiscriminately and without concern for our hungover state or lack of sleep. I say many alarms because I had slept through the previous three that had been going off for the better part of an hour. The loudest of the “BEEP BEEP BEEP” was set as the “time to leave the cabin” alarm. It was almost 5am and we were already off to a late start. Daybreak was within an hour and one thing that had been ingrained in my brain throughout my prestigious Youtube turkey hunting education was “Get set up before the sun breaks”.
“SHIT! STEVE! WE’RE LATE! WE SLEPT IN! GETTTT UPPPPPPPPPPPPP!”
I felt I was living the hectic scene from Home Alone where the parents are frantically woken up and hastily begin packing only to forget their most prized possession… their child.
The prior night’s activities meant we couldn’t skip the coffee, so while it brewed at a snail’s pace, I was throwing on camo and making last minute additions to our gear, running around like a chicken with my head cut off.
“Got your boots? How about your shells? Do you need coffee for your thermos?”
In an effort to speed up the process for Steve, who at this point was moving far too slow for my liking, I asked “can I toss you gear in the car to speed things up a bit? Give you more time if you need a swig of coffee or some outhouse time?”
He offered a wave of his hand in the direction of the car as he shuffled off towards the outhouse. I grabbed his shotgun, and leaned it against the closest wall of the cabin and began to load up his bag and other gear.
Steve returned triumphantly from the outhouse, seeming to have a bit more pep in his step after exorcising his demons from dinner the night before. In the meantime, I had finished packing and locking up the cabin. We piled in the car, slammed the doors shut, put the key in the ignition and turned it, only to hear “Deet deet deet” the unmistakable sound of a dead car battery.
What deity or karmic being did I offend so badly they would strike me or more aptly, my car down when I needed it most? Did my prayers when I needed help landing a fish or finding a downed grouse not meet the requirements to be considered a faithful devotee?
My simmering stress levels from our late start now morphed into a full blown burning rage. Poor Steve was a champ and sat stoic in his resolve, listening to an ever growing string of expletives all while watching my melt down unfold before his crusty sleep deprived red eyes.
“Well, we’re fucked.” I said with all the optimism of someone whose day has just been ruined.
“Did you check the battery terminals and connections?” asked Steve in the most non-confrontational way possible, knowing my mood and tension could erupt at any moment.
“Yes, but no luck, it's an old battery and it looks corroded as shit but it's been working well without problems for ages.” I said.
“Well maybe this was its last hurrah” replied Steve.
“It may be mine too if we don’t figure this out” I quipped back.
Steve became more sullen, either because he was trying to solve the battery issue independently or because he was more than likely reflecting on how much better off he was in the peaceful and tranquil setting of the outhouse. The plastic throne would have seemed to be a much more welcoming environment than what he was being subjected to while leaning against my now dead vehicle. Rocks were kicked, logs thrown, fists banged against the car hood. Our exciting weekend of turkey hunting was dead before the sun had even risen.
The rant that started with the Toyota, and its battery, eventually morphed to self depreciation - why the hell did I have to go check the gear before bed! Then it hit me like a slap in the face, and I couldn’t help but start grinning…
“Our Side by Side has a battery booster!” I yelled. Since our side by side was considered one of the most valuable family possessions, it was routinely hidden back on our trails, well away from any prying eyes or thoughts of thievery.
Praying it was charged enough to save our day, I sprinted through the woods to the resting place of our machine. I whipped off the cover, dug through the under storage compartment and pulled out the bag containing our prize- the battery booster! I tucked the bag under my arm and raced back along the dark moon lit trails, dodging exposed roots, low hanging branches and puddles like a running back tearing into an end zone. After a few seconds of connecting wires and turning on the car, we were greeted by the purr of the Camry’s little engine as it came back to life. Not all was lost. We could still salvage the day.
We slammed the doors, hit the gas and sped off (at a legal speed of course) down the highway toward our hunting grounds. At this time my sense of relief from the remedied battery was fighting a war against the pending anxiety around the steadily rising sun. I had come to terms with not making it to the field under the cover of darkness, but I rationalized continuing the hunt by telling myself since we had all day to hunt it wouldn’t matter. Not only that but I was tired of being told “You can’t hunt them from your couch”, and let’s face it, they were right.
After an uneventful drive, we rolled up the farm driveway just before 6:00am, headlights illuminating the gravel driveway that rolled up and down with the rolling hills as we travelled along it towards the back of the property. With the sun beginning to peak over the far forested ridge that lay in front of us, the pink glow of the sunrise rose to flood over the landscape. The excitement of the hunt was setting in, the songbirds were starting to wake and in the fleeting darkness you could still make out a heavy fog clinging to the basin of the fields and gullies.
With our hearts racing in anticipation and excitement, we popped the trunk and began slinging various decoy bags, chairs, backpacks, blinds and shotgun slings over our shoulders. We looked more like pack mules than hunters. Deep down, I think I had hoped bringing enough gear to stock a Bass Pro Shop would help make up for our lack of experience.
It was about this time the sun lighting up the landscape also exposed the day's most serious hangover induced oversight. Steve’s shotgun. In the frantic melee of the morning, it had not made it from its resting place, leaned against the wall of the cabin’s front porch to the Camry.
To say Steve was gutted was an understatement; think about showing up to the championship game without your skates, cleats or other critical piece of gear. For weeks we had been talking and strategizing about how we would hunt the property together. And he got screwed, all because he had faith his buddy wasn’t an idiot. To his credit, he didn’t lose his cool in any greater fashion than to send a few snarky remarks and shakes of his head my way. Just in case his relatively understanding demeanor was a ploy or illusion, I decided it best for my safety to casually move the only shotgun present to the other side of our blind and conveniently out of his reach.
I apologised profusely and repeatedly, feeling utterly ashamed of my stupidity and frustrations at the morning’s events. Racking my brain for a solution, I explained since I was using an over under, we could set up in one blind, then if the situation presented itself we could shoot one bird then hand it off to the second guy, who would hopefully tag a second bird without having to reload. Lots and lots of “If’s” made this a decidedly awkward plan. But we were here and we didn’t have time to go back home to get his shotgun and as they say “you can’t kill them with good intentions.”
We walked over and set up shop, letting the stress of the morning's events wash away in the gently receding fog. As it began to lift, the features of the farm began to present themselves. Forested groves separated open pastures. Rolling hills. A seldom used and very overgrown burn pit. A lake with the glisten of the morning sun off its surface filtering through the trees. The warmth of the sun melting away the remaining fog, the vapor disappearing like an apparition into the forest.
If this serene view isn’t enough to calm someone down, nothing could.
We hunkered down in the blind and when the sun rose above the far line of sugar maples we began sharing the responsibility of calling, using whatever knowledge we could remember from the thousands of videos and sound bites we had studied prior to our arrival. Similar to a sniper consulting his ballistics table cheat cheat before engaging a target, I was constantly referring to the hand written notes on my box call for the proper composition of a purr, cluck or anything that might faintly resemble a bird in heat. We’d justify every failed call with some variation of “each turkeys going to sound a little different” or “maybe that sounded like an exotic turkey?” or “sometimes turkey’s gotta sound a little under the weather.”
We scratched and purred our way through the early morning without response. And then our hearts stopped when a gobble erupted from the distance. Being rookies, we didn’t know if he was 10m or 1000m away, but it didn’t matter we were jacked up! That unique and mesmerizing sound electrified us in an instant, our hearts were racing! Not knowing any other course of action, we waited a few minutes in silence, the tweeting of song birds punctuating the silence of the early morning before it was once again interrupted by another booming gobble.
Wanting to share the experience and make up for my egregious mistakes from earlier in the morning, I suggested Steve have a go using his box call. He sat upright, gripped the call and began jerking the paddle back and forth which produced a sound quite different from mine but achieved the same result, another gobble. The bird called even louder this time and so quickly, it almost cut off our own. And let me tell you, it took every ounce of my being to relinquish control of the calling at the same moment that distant tom was firing off at his suspected future ex-wife - but what could I do? I had single handedly ruined his hunt, the very least I could do was try to give him a chance to have some fun with this gobbling bird.
Steve had gone in cold, he hadn’t been practicing with his brand new calls to this point and apparently hadn’t bothered to tune or try them out prior to the hunt. His initial calling sounded more like a creaky screen door you might find on the front porch of an old farmhouse than a horned up old hen (where I had no doubt mine surely sounded like sweet nothings whispered during pillow talk). It was enough to make me squirm in my seat, like nails on a chalkboard but on a more soul crushing “you’re going to scare my turkey away” kind of level.
It was akin to seeing your kid absolutely bomb at their music recital, you just have to smile and keep clapping. I wasn’t going to start clapping but I could try to fein some solidarity and support. All I could do was try my best to conceal my discomfort by peering through my binoculars in the direction of the gobbles and hope for the best. I’m happy to report that after a few attempts his calling seemed to improve dramatically and by some miracle, and likely because we found the one deaf tom in the county, he was able to strike up another gobble, this time much closer and we could tell by the change in volume he was headed our way. We tried a few other calls but were disheartened when no gobbles responded in kind. Unphased, we sat ready in the blind, myself with my 20 inch, 12 gauge Stoeger over and under sitting at the ready and Steve, well, Steve had his sandwich.
After what seemed like an eternity, our attention was drawn to the movement over our left side. A hen in full strut, moving towards us from the far field making a cacophony of commotion as she walked through the lime green shoots of this year's crop of wild ramps. (We later learned our borderline awful and repetitive calling may have upset her enough to prompt her to investigate). We quickly reminded ourselves of being on a spring hunt and harvesting a hen wasn’t an option. We’d have to fight our rookie urge to take any bird that came our way. So we settled in and watched her put on a show. As she danced back and forth with her feathers puffed out, simultaneously trying to intimidate her rival and seduce her gentlemanly caller. She reminded me of an older, and very inebriated, woman I once saw trying to seduce a younger gentleman at a local bar, but I digress.
We spotted movement to her left, coming from the same neighbouring field the hen had come from, more turkeys. Within a heartbeat, 5 jakes seemed to sprint towards us from a distance of 100 yards through the stand of grey maple trees, their branches punctuated with green early season buds. They quickly closed the gap to within 50 meters in a matter of seconds, oblivious to the giant blind conspicuously plopped on the edge of the field. As the hen continued to dance past our blind, she putted and clucked at our hen decoy, her perceived competitor and likely source of the alien-like turkey sounds.
The jakes continued their tear toward the hen and our decoys. 60 yards… 40 yards… 20 yards… but still no shot! Realizing the potential for our original plan to come to fruition, I began analyzing each bird for the tell-tale beard indicating a legal bird. I spotted one. Within an instant, the shotgun was raised slowly upwards, the smooth hardwood of the shotgun stock kissing my cheek, the beads were lined up, the cold touch of a bare finger on a cold metal of the trigger, BOOM!!
The shot erupted and shattered the tranquility and silence of the pasture. The bottom barrel exploded with shot, sending pellets down range towards the unsuspecting bird who dropped with a quick flop as if to say goodbye to his friends, then went still. I quickly put the firearm back on safe and handed it to Steve, with a whisper reminding him it was loaded. I had watched many videos and had heard from friends about how jakes would routinely gang up on injured or downed birds, leaving an opportunity for a partner to harvest a second. Unfortunately despite our best hopes and planning, the jakes and hen didn’t want to stick around and quickly bolted to the safety of the burn pit and the deciduous forest beyond it.
After a few minutes of catching our breath, half silent congratulations and hi-fives while listening to our hearts beat feverishly in our chests, we regained our composure and waited to make sure that no other birds were watching or about to stroll by before going to retrieve our prize. After another quick apology for my earlier mistakes and a gracious thank you for his calling (who knew?), we walked up to take a look at my first wild turkey. There it lay, in the still dewy grass that glistened in the morning light, his iridescent feathers radiating all the hues of the rainbow as my hand ran along them in appreciation. He didn't have much in the way of spurs, little nubs and a beard that matched. It wasn’t the largest bird out there but it was a bird to be proud of, a trophy no matter what.
After admiring our bird and reliving the insanity of the morning, we packed out our gear, loaded up the Camry and headed back to camp. We drove up the winding gravel road back to our little cabin in the woods, crested the final hill and rolled up beside the cabin. I turned off the engine and we walked towards the porch to be greeted by none other than Steve's shotgun, at the ready, leaning against the wall.
Without missing a beat Steve looked at me and said,
“Hey, At least I’m ready for tomorrow.”
