Pennsylvania Game News - May 2021 - 55

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Gone Gobblers

DON'T HUNT spring gobblers as much as I used to, and although I've harvested
my fair share over the years, there were plenty of birds that got away. Turkeys I
should have bagged, but that escaped through my goof-ups or just by plain bad luck.
Hunting gobblers in the spring wasn't a big thing when I started hunting, so I didn't
catch spring gobbler fever until 1988, 19 years after I began hunting. I pieced together
a camo ensemble from archery hunting duds, and added some more, including a hat
that contained a heavy netting you could pull down over your face. Dressed in my
new-found gear on the morning of April 23, 1988, I cased my upland game shotgun
and traveled to a Schuylkill County game lands that I had never before hunted.
I climbed a ridge well before daylight, set up against a big tree and sent out a few
yelps on my new Lynch box call. A booming gobble sounded so close it seemingly
shook the ground I was sitting on. I unfurled the facemask from my hat and shouldered
my semiauto bird gun. A few minutes later, a small flock of hens were within yards
with a gobbler in tow. That darn facemask, however, obstructed a clear view, and I
couldn't pick out the gobbler from the hens, and the whole flock filtered past me.
Gobbler gone.
The experience left me hooked on spring gobbler hunting, and before the next
year, I had a new specialized turkey gun, new camo, decoys, and a new facemask. In
the ensuing years, I harvested quite a few gobblers, but there should have been more.
In 2006, I had a gobbler coming in to my calls when two coyotes ran in spooking
the bird. Gobbler gone.
In 2008, I called in a gobbler that hung up in thick cover well within range, but
while waiting for him to step into the clear, he saw something he didn't like and
melted back into the thicket. Gobbler gone.
In 2009, I was working a gobbler in my front when I heard the telltale putt, putt
behind me from a jake that had come in silently and caught me shifting to get a shot
at the unseen gobbler approaching in my front. Gobbler gone.
Late in the season in 2010, when the noon quitting time was still in effect, I had a
tom gobbling like mad at 11:40 a.m. The bird was on one ridge with me on another
and a valley between. The bird wouldn't budge, so I moved off the ridge into the valley
and set up again to call, thinking he might come in on the moving " hen. " Turns out the
bird took a circular route and gobbled at 11:55 in the spot I had vacated. Gobbler gone.
In 2012, I worked a vocal gobbler that kept doing a semi-circle around me for half
an hour; the tom just would not commit. Finally, while the bird was still gobbling in
my front, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. Sneaking a peek, a gobbler
with a beard nearly touching the ground was 10 yards away, but saw me move and
vanished. I figured the old boss had come in silently to the gobbling upstart that had
moved into his territory. Two gobblers gone.

Bob D'Angelo
MAY 2021	

55
Pennsylvania Game News - May 2021

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