I have spent a good bit of the last 25 years teaching folks how to be humiliated by turkeys. That was based on a good 20 years experience before that being humiliated myself. Not everyone I have taught to hunt turkeys gets it. I am not sure I even get it. I just introduced another fellow to the sport, and I am not sure he gets it.

You have to understand, Foxtrot Charlie is not just an accomplished big game hunter, but he comes from a long line of big game hunters. He has a grandfather pictured with Elmer Keith in one of his books. He has taken all manner of game in North America and Europe. When I mentioned Eastern Wild Turkey was the hardest game on the North American Continent, he replied that he had heard that, but did not understand why. I told him I would show him.

If you look back a few posts, you will see a podcast I did with FC out at the Honey Hole. The turkeys were in rare form that morning. We got to hear all manner of calling, and a gobbler and hens actually came out and gave us a floor show. It does not get much better than that at the Honey Hole. On that morning we were at the center of at least 10 acres of turkeys going off from their roosts and making all sorts of ruckus. It was still a month before the Opener. We could not hunt. We could not call. We just had to sit there and behold it.

It is funny how we come to our humiliation with turkeys. Some fellow have high hopes. Some are just willing pilgrims. Some start off proud. Some are timid. I’ve now taken on the training of my two sons and two adult friends. My sons have run the full gauntlet many times over. SuperCore dutifully went through several seasons of debasement before throwing in the towel. FC has left the field, tags in hand after 3 mornings of indifference from the gobblers. We had one gobbler sound off very close to Honey Hole. He seemed to be honoring my calls, but then he hopped down off the roost and went off gobbling along Heartbreak Ridge like he never heard us. We were left realizing he was responding to hens that were too quiet for us to hear.

Tuesday morning, I was certain of a gobbler going to roost out on Gobbler’s Knob and we set up in the morning to call to him, but he never gobbled. Mid morning, a gobbler sounded off at the Honey Hole, and we schlepped the 1/2 mile between and set up. I called. The gobbler showed a few minutes later, but his head barely showed above the grass before disappearing again. We waited, but he never showed. I cannot even say we were busted.

Here is a pic of him in the blind on the last morning. He seems far too cheery. He is still having a good time. The futility and hopelessness has not yet set in. I’m not sure it will. Whether or not he will become a turkey hunter hangs in the balance.

I’m not sure what is going through his mind right now. The process seemed overly byzantine. The calling aspect is archane. Two men, dressed absurdly, carrying guns with the recoil of elephant rifles, trying to beg a 20 lb bird to come close — there are times I don’t even get it.

Still, I have to admit, this time of year I ache for it. It just is not April if I cannot hear the turkeys sniggering behind my back when I’m in the woods, or taunting me from the middle of the field while I am at the cabin. For FC, I know he went away shaking his head. However, I pray he’ll come to miss it after a while and decide to come back for another round of soul-sucking.

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