On paper, it looks like fun.  Hunt turkeys in my hometown, travel to South Texas and hunt turkeys in the Tamalapian thornscrub, travel north to my boyhood home in Dodd City, and then back to Childress - all in the course of seven days.  What I didn’t realize was the challenge involved.

One the first hunt, the turkeys were moving but not responding to the calls.  The fickle Texas weather and prolonged drought from 2005 made turkey hunting hard this year.  The toms just weren’t interested in hearing calls.  In fact, they would often run from the sounds of a yelping hen.

The only way to hunt the turkeys is by ambush.  Rio Grande turkeys have fairly predictable travel patterns so my brother William and I take our chance at trying to score a bird without using a call.  It is a risky move but we don’t have much of a choice and we build a ground blind with some brush.

The move pays off.  Within about twenty minutes, a hen and a few toms ease past.  With a swift arrow, William pops a tom from 12 yards out using a longbow.  He is sure of his abilities but before he made the shot, I secretly doubted he could do it.

A day later, I am on the road to South Texas - Pearsall and the Halff Brothers ranch to be exact.   For three days, I will hunt turkeys in the South Texas scrub brush.  Like in Northwest Texas, I am afraid that these turkeys will be silent and the hunt will be tough.

Guns are patterned and equipment readied but, for me, it was all for naught.  The South Texas turkeys were tough beyond compare and I had marginal luck in calling them to me.  Luckily for a few others on the hunt, they were at the right place at the right time.

Back on the road again, I travel to northeast Texas to hunt for eastern wild turkeys near my boyhood home of Dodd City with William.  I’ll hunt for turkeys in the ash bottomlands of Bois d’Arc Creek where, thankfully, Eastern Wild Turkeys flourished ten years after their re-introduction to the county.

It sounds trite but Fannin County was the same song, third verse.  We’d hear turkeys gobbling from their roosts but as soon as they flew down, they’d be tight lipped for the rest of the day.  For two days, William and I followed the turkeys and tried to call them close but the cursed drought changed their patterns and their habits.

In over 1000 miles or travel, I failed to harvest a turkey.  I’ve never hunted for turkeys so hard and traveled so many miles to come up empty handed.  Ironically, the long hunt was the best I had ever had.  I met great people on my roadtrip and got to hunt with my brother once again.

 

As tired as I am, I cannot wait to go again.  William will be out again in a  week and I have plans to take four high school girls hunting. 

 

In the end, my turkey triangle ended up being like the Bermuda Triangle.  However, my nemesis isn’t some unseen force.  Quite the opposite…

 

My nemesis is a raucous, sometimes ugly, sometimes beautiful, but always challenging wild turkey.

 

I can’t wait to get back out again.