NORTH MEETS SOUTH
For Gobblers

Part 2 By John Coit

My turkey nerves came alive. Ten minutes passed as the tom and I carried on a regular conversation. Double- and triple-gobbles frazzled my nerves. Suddenly, from out of the uppermost branches of the tree where I'd set up on, flew two longbeards. My missing gobblers! A few putts later and this game was kaput. How quickly we can be sent back to nursery school by a longbeard! Dave asked what my plan was now. "Whatever you have in mind," I said. "You're the guide."

Dave chuckled and said, "Come on."

We hiked up and up and up some more. Here I'd thought I'd planned my way onto an easy bird and now look at me. Dave led me over hill and dale and then down into a swamp where we set up in the thickest, nastiest woods I'd seen yet. Although it wasn't the open ridges I'd journeyed to New York to hunt, I believed the odds were now in my favor. I know swamp birds!

Dave and I blind-called for forty-five minutes. The recipe was simple, but deadly: cluck and purr.  The still morning air came alive. One, two, three, four different gobblers, all of them telling us that the boys were coming in and eager to have a good time. One bird seemed especially attuned to the old boss hen, so I concentrated on him. I met each gobble with a  furious yelp and cluck combination. Seventy-five yards and closing. "Yelp, yelp, yelp," and then an honoring gobble.

I knew this bird now felt he'd come close enough. A little 'shoving' was needed. So, I threw him a short, sweet and sassy cackle. With no further hesitation, the bird spitted and drummed to within twenty feet of us. I was a wreck:  shaking , sweating , and loving every minute of it. When my shot rang out there was silence: no flapping , no running, nothing. Dave asked, "Did you hit him?" It hadn't occurred to me that I might have missed.

A quick shuffle of our feet and there lay the second biggest gobbler of myhunting career: 21 ½-lbs, with a 10 ¼-" beard and 1 ¼"-spurs. A regular spitting and drumming machine. I was elated, and grateful that my guide had had a great back-up plan.

Dave Bryan finished up the morning's action by scoring on yet another longbeard high on top of the ridge. His second bird weighed 19-lbs, sported an 8" beard and 3/4"-spurs.

Greg never did harvest a New York bird, but it certainly wasn't due to lack of opportunity. He didn't know it, but David and I were silently rooting for the gobblers, since Greg had already harvested four huge longbeards in South Carolina and needed to be humbled a bit.

All we can say in conclusion is this: "Thanks, Tom. You haven't seen the last of these three Southerners."