May 20, 2022 Update

Turkey

hey MAHA folks!

Didn’t get in a lot of turkey hunting this spring but did have some success and the spring woods are always a nice place to spend some time. I didn’t get the spring trifecta done in a single day this year but was able to accomplish that with an extra day involved and with some unexpected bounty thrown in.

I hunted a couple of days alone before getting Elaine to take the time to go out with me. She is obviously some kind of good luck charm because we had a great day and fantastic hunt. The morning started off discouraging with high and blustery winds and no gobbles. We set up where I had experienced some good hunts in past years and heard several birds gobbling earlier in the week but this morning…nada. After an hour or so we picked up and begin slowly moving further into the property, with the idea of stopping and calling periodically. We didn’t have to go far before we got a response. I wasn’t certain at first but got another gobble with some hard cutting and I was pretty sure I knew where the bird was and thought we might have a chance with him so we set up. Over the next hour or so it sounded like the first bird was moving along a creek and towards the property line and in the direction of a second bird that had joined in the gobbling. Quite quickly it became apparent that he was moving towards not one, but two gobblers. They all got together in a bottom pasture along the creek on the adjoining property but we kept at them. They really didn’t move much after coming together and even fell quiet for a short time and I was afraid that maybe a hen or two had joined up with the 3 gobblers. I figured the time was right to get aggressive with some hard cutting while also using the slate call for some loud yelping. That seemed to be working and they started moving up out of the field and towards us. It took a while but we finally saw them moving up towards the edge of the timber, one of the three in a full strut. When they finally reached the property fence, two of the three ducked under the bottom wire while the third gobbler (the strutting one) stayed just on the other side. The two on our side walked straight up to the jake decoy and we were able to double up. My wife got her first multi-beard gobbler on this hunt.

I found the morels on our place and picked them the day before this hunt and the crappie and drum were caught later that same afternoon on our local lake. By the way, if any of my fellow club members are looking down their noses at the drum, they’ve never had fresh drum poached in crab boil and served with melted butter. The wild asparagus was the bonus find as we stumbled on them growing along the road right-of-way adjacent to club ground.

Hard to beat a Missouri spring like this one. Wild turkey breast kabobs, grilled asparagus, poached drum, fried crappie, and morels…I don’t know how it gets any better than that! Thanks for all you folks do to find and maintain access to great properties for us to pursue our passions!