“Hunting 16 of 22 days and only getting one bird? Shaman, ol buddy! What went wrong?”

Nothing went wrong. It all fell together. It just did not fall together in a pleasing way. Now that I’ve had a couple days in the recliner and a couple nights of 10+ hours of sleep, the lightbulb is beginning to flicker again.

Look, the only thing “wrong” with this season was me, my health. I deliberately limited myself to one hunting venue simply because I did not have the energy to go elsewhere. The Honey Hole is a 1/2 mile walk from the cabin along an abandoned county road. I knew I could get there and back. I also knew that I have filled both tags from that spot in prior years. I did not mean to test my theories. It just happened that way. I did trust them, however.

First, let me describe my method. I’ve got a 200-acre farm in Bracken County, Kentucky. I hunt it every year with my sons. I had Chemo last year, and I am still kind of weak. I knew from experience that I could make the half-mile walk out to my Honey Hole and back. Any other exertion might leave me gassed. As it was, I was taking short naps in the blind, naps after I got back in and often spent the afternoon sleeping in an effort to recharge my batteries. This is no way to hunt, but I’m steadily improving and hope to be well beyond this by next year.

Next, Let’s reviewThe Shamanic Theory of Gobbler Behavior:

1. There are only a few days during season when a given gobbler or group of gobblers is going to be receptive to your calls.
2. When the gobbler’s switch turns “ON,” it is a highly localized phenomenon in both time and space.
3. Gobblers show little difference in age or maturity when they turn “ON.”

RULE #1 and this Year

I think this one is the most obvious. I tracked the same bunch of gobblers from just after March 1 to May 5. The gobblers around the Honey Hole were all mostly henned up. That is, they all had hens close by that they could see. I had some luck with this gobbler earlier in the year, but that luck proved to be illusory. In one instance, he flew down and came rushing down the pasture towards me, but went to the other side of the field to service hens. In another, he was honoring my calls, but when I spied him, he was about 100 yards away, following hens that were crossing the pasture going to Left Leg Creek.

Rule #2 and this Year

Angus nailed a real trophy on The Opener. Moose got a nice bird the next weekend. Both of them would tell you these were generally flukes in an overall off kind of year. It wasn’t for lack of birds. We all heard plenty of gobblers and hens. They just were not being cooperative. The ON switch for these birds was only being thrown in rare circumstances and in isolated areas. One weekend, it was the east side of the farm, the next weekend it was on the west. Finallly a bird turned ON in the middle of the property and I was there to witness it.

Rule #3 and this Year

This is probably the most controversial part of my theories. Most guys will argue that they can tell the difference between an old gob and a young one. Me? When I find a gobbler with his switch turned ON, it really does not matter how old he is. He comes eager to breed. Angus’ gob this year was probably 5 years old. He came from well off the property and climbed down and back out of a ravine and crossed at least 2 barbed wire fences to get to Angus with very little coaxing.

I’m actually surprised we have not seen more mature birds lately. We have not been filling as many tags as we could in the past few years. 2020, we did not hunt at all due to the COVID thing. In 2022, there was my cancer and all-in-all crappy weather to go with it. There has also been a series of fairly mild winters and a visit from the cicadas that left lots of extra protein on the ground.

I will be honest, I really cannot tell the difference between a normal 2-year-old and a mature gobbler. If this booger I finally roped in had turned out to have 1 1/2 inch spurs, I could have said “I knew it was a mature gob from the moment I heard him.” I could have turned this into a noble season-long battle of wits with this bird. It wouldn’t have been true. I honestly could not figure out why as many as 8 gobblers that I had within earshot this year did not come in.

What Does this all Mean?

Well, I would not wish what I had on anyone. However, it kept me in one spot this year. This is not the first time I’ve done that at the Honey Hole. It’s just the first time it took so long to fill a tag. What does it mean? Let’s look at some fairly popular concepts.

1. Hunting pressure: I’m not going to say there is no such thing as hunting pressure. However, if this had been public land, the quick explanation for my experience this year would have been that the Opening Day crowd had queered the birds and they finally recovered enough in the last weekend for me to take one. I was there. There was no hunting pressure. The birds were already queer and they stayed queer.
2. Birds getting immune to calling: What I experienced this season was a surfeit of hens making plaintive calls to gobblers and the gobblers just not responding. It wasn’t from crappy calls from goobers in camo. These were Grade A breeding hens, hot and horny. The gobs were not immune. They just had other hens, well in sight, and were sticking with the ones over on the neighboring limb rather than running off to see who might be making strange noises in the bushes.
3. You can wear out an area: 16 days out of 22 should wear out any hunting venue if it were possible. I’m sure that if I had connected with more gobblers or missed shots or gotten busted, that would have made turkeys hinky. However, I sat there, day after day.

Granted, sitting in one spot for the length of season is not my idea of an ideal strategy. It is probably giving the run-n-gunners the heeby-jeebies. However, given my limitations this year, and the way this spot has produced in the past, I figured that it beat staying on the couch. The point of all this is that it ended up working. All the rules that it broke meant nothing in the end.

What could this mean for you? I’m not here to tell you how to hunt, but if I were hunting a small plot, after reading this, I would not be as worried about putting off the turkeys through repeated visits. Mind you, I didn’t run-n-gun every day. I came in well before first light and left in the late morning. I called moderately and only sprinkled the really excited stuff in when the mild stuff didn’t get a response otherwise.

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