I am always on a mission to introduce new hunters and fishers to the outdoors. It is always a bonus when they happen to be a minority or a woman. These two groups are grossly underrepresented in the outdoors and should be given more opportunities and encouragement.
This year my partner made the decision to take a hunter-safety course and buy a hunting license. She has been out with me a few times as an observer but never as a participant. With her on the cusp of getting a working dog, she decided now was the time to give it a shot.
She has always been infatuated with turkey hunting because of the back-and-forth nature of the hunt. Not to mention, turkey meat is one of the easiest game meats to stomach for someone who did not grow up eating wild game.
Finding Turkeys on Public Land
Rhode Island is considered one of the toughest states to hunt turkeys on public land. While there is no shortage of wildlife management areas and turkeys in general, birds can easily spread out. Frankly, more turkeys are found on private land.
We arrived at a WMA for first light and listened for birds. When we did not hear a single gobble, we decided to start walking the woods and calling to see if we could strike a bird. After a few hours, a few miles, and a few different WMAs (yes Rhode Island is that small), we decided to try one more WMA for the final three hours of the allotted hunting time.
We walked about a mile clucking, cutting, and yelping into the expansive woods to no avail. By this point my tongue was blistering from using the mouth call so much. After examining for turkey sign, we pulled up to a location that I knew should have birds.
A couple of yelps and a cut later and we struck a bird. The look on her face was priceless. It was the look of someone who was overly excited to have a shot at their first bird masked by the nerves of what was about to happen. The hunt was on.
We struck the bird at 200-yards and began to plan our setup. However, these birds were cruising and within 30 seconds we saw three long beards moving through the timber. How those birds never saw us still baffles me.
Playing the Waiting Game
We managed to set up after they went behind a ridge. I began calling and the birds wanted to come but they did not want to come down the ridge they had just climbed. They continued past us while a fourth Tom emerged from the trees to our left. He continued to a patch of skunk cabbage approximately 80 yards away and proceeded to stay put for the next hour.
On the bright side, this bird gave us plenty of gobbling, but I am too impatient a turkey hunter to sit and wait for too long. We closed the distance on this bird twice. After another hour of calling and waiting, he finally began to emerge from his cover.
It seemed for a moment that he would come marching right down the path we had laid out for him. Since turkeys must never do what you expect them to do, he went up the ridge to our right, saw the decoy, and proceeded to strut for the next ten minutes. We had him at 40 yards, but it would have made for a tough shot for a new hunter.
Eventually, he moved on and I decided we should get on the ridge and try to call him back from a different angle. I cut at him hard, and he hammered us right back all while closing the distance from 100 yards to 40 yards in under a minute.
He never crossed a brush line in front of us and the next time we heard him was at 150 yards. No turkey tenders that night but it was an exciting hunt.
The Aftermath
The entire time we were out there, I could see my partner shaking. Any turkey hunter whether new or old understands the uncontrollable shaking you undergo when the birds are on their way to you.
She loved the action of the hunt, and it would have been nice to reward her with a bird. She learned that day that turkey hunting is never precise, and it is almost impossible to account for every variable. We could have set up on the ridge from the start but that would have risked blowing our cover. Additionally, we could have kept the decoy in the bag, but when the woods are as uncovered as they are early in the season, I did not want to risk the birds spooking at the lack of a decoy.
Overall, she could not have asked for a much better first hunt. We heard no shortage of gobbling, she got to see a bird in full strut, and we worked hard.
As the years wear on, I cannot wait to see how she develops as a hunter. I am personally fairly new to turkey hunting as well and it is something we can learn together. Here’s to the next great hunt!
