On Turkey Season

Anticipation, effort, absurdity; nine days, an eternity.

April 28 — Season opener. A few unproductive hours in the woods, well after sunrise, mostly on a whim. No expectations, but had read that 9-11 is an opportunistic window; hence I sit just above a muddy stream, softly clucking. Fail to recognize a wandering tom will avoid swamp bottoms at this hour, instead preferring to loaf on ridges. Hear no gobbles, but watch a hen calmly cross the street as I approach the trailhead leaving the woods.

May 2 — Still-hunted along the Charles River. Plenty of fresh deer sign; loosely follow that trail. Called on a ridge and watched a beaver swimming in the Charles. Later bumped three does, their beds still warm when I reach down to touch them. Will try the same loop this fall.

Crossed over into another section and box called on the river bank. Gobbles from across the other side. Unproductive, but riveting. Harvested some wild garlic as I walked back to the truck.

Later, at the farm, picking up a CSA share. Watched three longbearded toms browse in the fresh pea fields at 20 yards.

May 5 —Cinco de Turkey. Hunt with Kyle in Middleboro. Hens responding to box call a little before six am, then a tom. Set up off a newly planted field and tried to outcompete the real hens for attention. Heart pumping. Tom wandered off at 6:15, Kyle went to intercept.

Stuck with them for several hours, calling, moving, enticing — doing our best to fool the tom into abandoning his hens. Never had a bird more fired up, less inclined to come closer. A riveting dance.

Last ditch attempt to bump him, Kyle pressuring towards me. Succeeded, released an arrow. Feathers and commotion and — he ran off, unphased, taking hens with him. Left wishing I could have those few minutes back.

Saw a dead turkey on the side of the highway driving home, then eleven birds in the fields at the farm. I could have killed them with a rock.

May 10 — Martha’s Vineyard. Morning to myself. Deer in field on the way in. Thought I saw movement but, leaving the trailhead in the dark, forgot binoculars. A skunk. Bumped another deer at the top of a ridge.

Got on birds as I looped back. Set up decoy off a stone wall and tried to call in one of the toms. A runner and dog, coming up hard and fast behind me, startled the gobbler and another, with three hens. They pushed into the woods. Moved up to them — interrupted by a gray-haired woman walking. Pushed further, belly crawling, to 40 yards. No gobbling. Pushed further, again, to 20 — and watched as the hens led the men off into the woods.

Another loop. Cut into the woods where I last saw them and called. Caught glimpse of a red head. Attempted to stalk. My woodsmanship lacking, admitted defeat after walking into a creek bed, losing the birds, soaking my boots.

Birds in yards with frequency on the island.

May 12 — Jake stuck inside the chain link fence at the kiddos school. Watched with Kiddo and the Warthog for ten minutes before I dropped them off, him running up and down the fence line, gobbling, trying to find a way out. Another jake watched from the other side, amused or stressed.

After drop off drove to try a late morning hunt. Stopped at a farm on the way, having seen turkeys in their field. Asked for permission to hunt; “Sorry, we’re just not into that kind of thing.”

Walked through the State Forest and jumped wood ducks, mallards, three kinds of butterfly. Hawk overhead. Turned around where beavers had flooded the trail to Wolf Meadow (should have been called Wolf Pond). No gobbles, but found some old mushrooms, Dryad’s Saddle.

As I passed the same farm on the way home, watched a tom in a goat pen strut up and down the fence line, looking for a way out.

May 15 — Hunted late morning a spot I’ve walked for deer but never turkey. Sat along a field edge listening for gobbles. Noticed Allegheny blackberry bushes all around me.

Walked along a two track road, looking listening. Called. Glanced up to a button buck ten paces away, watching me watching him. One breath, two breaths — an eternity. Don’t worry, brother, I tell him, I’m not looking for you now. Peace.

Walked off with him still watching.

Later, a flush of mushrooms. Cortinarius, likely. Once you start to notice patterns they are everywhere. A track here, droppings there. The trail unfolds itself. There’s an interconnectedness that’s encoded in our DNA; we’ve just forgotten what it looks like.

Feel my season slipping into reverie, Sisyphean, transcending. No birds, again — but left the woods happy.

May 16 — Back in the same spot as yesterday, set up on a field edge 15 yards off a decoy hen. More passive today. Thought about my Vineyard hunt, belly crawling, forcing action. Wonder: am I hunting or playing? Tiptoeing distinctions. Should I be trying harder to follow the rules?

Still-hunted along the ridge line. Some scat, scratching, a deer bed. Catbird alarm calls. I fear I’m getting too literary as I hunt — as I write — so I slow down. A dog barks, grounding me in reality, breaking the spell.

Some fresher scat along an access road. Set up just off the trail, waiting. Wonder: am I moving too fast to wait and call in a bird? The fall is a season of dormancy — I can sit quietly, still, waiting for deer. Spring, though — spring is alive and demands action.

Wild blueberries prolific along the edge of the swamp as I walk back to the truck.

May 19 — Sam’s. Windy. Set up in clearing but moved quickly to the woods after sunrise. Jumped a doe on the walk in; she ran to five yards before she saw me — breaking away. I heard her splash through the swamp. Getting better at being quiet.

Looped through Sam’s; no birds. Hopped in the car to scout the neighborhood; two big toms adjacent to a construction site. Drove back and forth, back and forth looking for access; nothing, them still there on every pass.

Back to Sam’s and over to the farm. Traced through the woods thinking about Odin’s warning to take care not to be too wise: it can only lead to sorrow. Head back home without even a phantom gobble.

May 23 — Up, early, driving to Kyle’s. Last hunt of the season. In the woods pre-dawn. Raining and swollen streams. Field is silent where we saw birds a few weeks ago.

We separate, sit, listen. Kyle sends a video of a doe browsing ten feet away. Later, he gets on a gobble down the tracks. I double back but the birds are moving, crossing the street. We sit, wait, call — reflecting on silence, the levity and gravity of turkey season. Pick up a wing feather on the walk out.

Back to the truck, a Hail Mary drive for birds. Find two hens in a yard across the train tracks. They preen, peck, flirt — who has need for men? Hike into an old cranberry bog — a button buck watches us watch him just off the trail. Be easy, I tell him as we move on. Geese, not turkey, in the open field.

Cover more ground, another spot. Box call; gobbles behind the fence line. A big tom, then a jake. Place a decoy near an opening in the fence, wait. Light calls, scratching. “Take the shot,” says Kyle, “I’ll film you.” Waiting. Your cup is filled by filling others’. The birds drift off and away.

Driving again, thirty minutes left for a miracle. Watch the birds in a neighboring yard, moving away from a live hen. She can’t figure it out either. Down the road, another yard, another tom, bigger, strutting in front of a warning as the clock ticks down: “If you can read this, then you’re in range.”

Drove past a single, strutting, puffed up lonely tom at the transfer station on the way home. All the gates locked, fenced in.

The season ends with a metaphor I don’t care to explore.