The arrow finally flies straight on Opening Day

Turkey taken down after 10-year wait

By Guy Carl
Outdoors

The gobbling started before we had even set up. Just minutes earlier, hunting partner Matt Schwanebeck and I had split up to take our respective positions.

The stars were still overhead, but the first hints of daylight were already emerging above Napa’s eastern hills.

It was opening day of the spring 2009 turkey season, and the birds were awake early!

I crept slowly and quietly along the 15-minute hike to my chosen spot. Having hunted this private ranch before, I had a good idea which path to take. It was just barely light enough to make out the shapes of trees and bushes, so I went ahead without benefit of a flashlight. But I had to feel my way along to avoid stepping on any dry twigs or other noisy items.

Partway up the hill, I paused briefly to listen for the turkeys. The gobbling continued from a roost tree only about 100 yards away, making stealth all the more crucial.

I made my way through the sparse oak forest, keeping within the trees whenever possible to help conceal my silhouette. In a clearing atop the hill I found a good spot to place the decoy, and set myself up along the fence line under a wild olive tree.

As I have done on every spring turkey hunt of mine for the past 10 years, I carried a crossbow as my weapon of choice. Over the years I’ve had many opportunities that would have been an easy shot with a shotgun, but using the crossbow has proven a bit more challenging.

In fact, I’d never actually been successful in taking a turkey with the crossbow. But I’ve stubbornly insisted on lugging it out there nonetheless.

For me, the serenity of a beautiful spring day is, shall I say, “compromised” by the sound of a shotgun blast. The experience of being out in nature and enjoying a beautiful day truly is more important to me than how much game I bag, and it seems my choice of hunting weapon has proved to be the ultimate testament to that fact.

And I’ve never regretted that choice, even though it’s meant going home without a bird on several occasions.

Even so, I’ve always held out hope that my arrow would someday find its way to a turkey, and today seemed like a great chance for success.

I was literally surrounded by them! I gave a couple of clucks from my call, just to let the toms know I was there (or more correctly, that a lonely hen turkey was there looking for a mate).

A gobbler from a roost tree just over the crest of the hill called back.

Other birds from further up the canyon answered the first one, and then a third group joined in as well. The spring air was electrified with gobbling from three distinct flocks, all within a couple of hundred yards of me!

Patience is a virtue when it comes to hunting, so I waited patiently. I called, they called back. I stopped calling, they gobbled on anyway. Finally I heard the ruckus of wings as the first birds flew down. For a while I heard no calling, not even to answer my calls. Then I heard the gobblers again, but they were farther away down the hill. More calling indicated they were moving away from me, not towards me.

Now, I know the turkeys will do their morning rounds and will eventually make their way over to any unattached hens. If I just sat tight, they would come to me. Just be patient.

My patience ran out. Like a kid on Christmas morning, I just had to go peek and see what was going on! So I left my decoy and other items, and went for a walk in the general direction of the last gobble I’d heard. I carefully crept along the edge of the hill, looking down through all the openings in the trees.

After a few hundred yards I spotted them — the bright red heads of two gobblers in full strut! They were about 60 yards away from me amongst the trees, and they didn’t seem to have spotted me.

So I quietly ducked behind a tree, and decided to try and sneak up behind them.

I crept around the hillside expecting to find them up ahead and off to my right. But before I got that far, a set of tail feathers arose from behind a tree trunk just 20 yards away!

I froze in my tracks and crouched down on one knee, aiming the crossbow towards the turkey.

Fortunately, the bird was facing away from me, but there was nothing between us but the trunk of an oak tree. I hoped I could blend in with the manzanita bush behind me.

Motionless, I watched as the tom dropped out of strut and its red head emerged from behind the tree. Then came another tom behind it, and a third as well! I could only see their red heads above the tall grass — fine for a shotgun, but with a crossbow I needed to aim for the body.

I watched and waited, hoping one of the three gobblers would come into view before any of them spotted me and sounded the alarm.

One of them started to go into strut, and finally came into enough of a clearing in the grass that I could see its beard. I figured that was good enough. I took my aim, and with a “thump” of the bowstring, the arrow was in flight!

When a turkey is in strut, it puffs up its feathers to make it look bigger.

My arrow went right through these puffed-up feathers and sent a few flying, but the turkey was unharmed (although quite confused about what had just happened).

However, the bird still had not spotted me (there being no loud blast from a shotgun), nor had any of the others. But my extra arrows were all back at my original spot near the decoy! So I backed up ever-so-slowly and crept around behind the manzanita bush, then hurried back to get more arrows.

What were the chances I could run back a couple of hundred yards, reload the crossbow, and return to find the birds still there?

Highly unlikely, I figured. When I returned the birds were not, in fact, where I had left them. But I heard clucking off to the right behind some brush. I stalked towards the sounds, keeping the brush between myself and the birds.

I heard the sharp clucks of the alarm call, but I held my course.

From behind the brush I could see them about 30 yards down the hill, beginning to move to the right. I waited until the first tom came clear of the branches. This time, the “thump” of the bowstring was followed by a “clap” as the arrow made contact.

After 10 years of trying, I had finally taken my first archery turkey!

Just a few minutes later, I heard several familiar shotgun blasts from up the canyon. But these sounds didn’t bother me this day, because they meant Matt had just bagged his opening day turkey as well.

We both went home very happy, having enjoyed a perfect spring day in the woods!

Guy Carl is a CPA and partner with BDCo Accountants and Advisors in St. Helena (www.bdcocpa.com).  Contact Guy at GC.outdoors@sbcglobal.net.

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