I Shot Pepe LePew
I’ve been at turkey hunting since Reagan’s first term. I’ve seen a lot– not all, but a lot. This was a new one on me.
Things started out pretty normal for this season. Since the Opener on Saturday, the gobblers have been sounding off whole-hardheartedly right before flydown. However, they clam up as soon as they hit the ground, and seldom make a peep afterwards. Over the years, I’ve learned that this is a sign of them still being in that post-breeding latent phase. They still have hens around, and the hens are not straying far. It is not until they start sneaking off in the mornings to tend their nests that the gobblers start getting interested in strange hens off in the bushes and start coming to calls. Sometimes it happens Opening Weekend, but it is usually to the latter part of the first week. This year, I can say with certainty that it happened on Thursday.
I have been going out to The Honey Hole all week. I make my calls. Gobblers gobble, but I could tell nobody was particularly interested in me. I heard maybe eight gobblers on The Opener. Not a one honored my calls, not even a particularly boisterous one I’ve had over my left shoulder all week. He’s been roosting down by Newstand about 80 yards from my setup. After 6 morning, I am convinced this gobbler exists only to hear his own voice. It has been incessant, but even he eventually plops down from his perch and wanders off, never to be heard again.
Today was different. I had four gobblers sounding off as soon as legal hunting commenced. Nobody was actually cutting in on my tree calls, but you could tell there were changes brewing. Before flydown, one gobbler way south of me, probably roosting near our family campground. kept coming back at me. He wasn’t all that eager, but he was consistent. I tried to jack him up a bit and threw some more excited yelping at him. He kept on gobbling, and I finally realized he was getting closer.
The campground is at the end of a 200 yard long pasture. From there, he would cross a thin treeline, skirting my luxury deer blind at Midway and then come into the pasture where I was situated. My setup at Honey Hole is another 200 yards down that pasture. He kept plodding along. I threw yelps at him occasionally to encourage him. At one point, as he crossed by Midway, I thought I saw him. However, when I put my shotgun up and looked through the scope, there was a whitetail doe at the far end of the field. She could tell she was watching the gobbler come by, and she was fixated on him. Eventually, she flicked her tail and wandered off into the woods.
That was a good thing. Saturday, I had 4 doe make all kinds of fuss when they came out into the pasture to feed and discovered me less than 10 yards away. They spent an inordinate amount of effort explaining their displeasure to me, and this, in turn, queered things with a hen that was coming into the field. Monday, they repeated the procedure, only this time there were two jakes coming up on their heals. They looked where the deer were looking and I was busted.
It was about this time, I noticed the gobbling was shifting. The gobbler had moved through the treeline and was now on the road that leads to the campground. Then he was off the road into the woods on Heartbreak Ridge. Then he was back up on the road, about 70 yards distant from me, then he was. . .well, he was all over the place. All in all, I would estimate that in the 80 or so yards he had come towards me, he had traversed 200 yards laterally, back and forth. I finally caught sight of the reason why. There was a hapless hen trying to eat and be left alone. She would get a couple of pecks in before rocketing away with the gobbler close behind. This repeated itself a couple of times outside the range of the shotgun before they went behind a large tree about 10 yards away from me, and then the hen came through the treeline once more at a dead run. I put my scope at an opening between the trees and the gobbler stepped right into the middle of my cross-hairs.
He went down without a twitch at 12 yards. I was shaking and praising the Good Lord for quite a bit before I finally found my legs and stood up to retrieve him. The hen stuck around and clucked at me. I am not sure if it was inquisitiveness, but she seemed more than anything, relieved.
This was probably a case of calling the hen more than the gobbler. She probably heard me sounding off with all my horny hen calls this morning and did the best she could to get two pastures down in the hopes of getting the gobbler to latch on to me. The escapades out in the field showed me he was very interested in her, but she was quite adverse to his advances. The first thing that hit me was Pepe LePew and the hapless cat.
Pepe weighed a firm 20 pounds and had a 10-inch beard and 13/16″ spurs.
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Congrats Shaman! Glad your patience paid off.
Shew, what a story! I had a similar experience on Good Friday.
It was pouring down rain, and two different construction crews decided Good Friday was an excellent time to start construction at the crossroads about 300-400 yards from my blind. Needless to say it was discouraging. About an hour into my sit in the wooden blind overlooking one of our fields, my calling was answered by a hen. She quickly appeared in the field, and started to cluck and yelp. I decided to imitate her every sound, to try to keep her in the field as long as possible, in hopes a nearby gobbler would become interested. It didn’t take long, and one lonely gobbler appeared out of the woods to my right. He came in a silent as could be. I shot him at 20 yards, in the pouring rain. He had an 11 inch beard, and 1 inch spurs. The hen stayed around for about 5 minutes, went over and checked out the dead tom, and finally left. Good Friday indeed.