By Corey New
Before Corey New bagged this Kentucky longbeard, he said it walked within just a few feet of him.
Our annual Combat in the Wild turkey excursion started off a little differently this spring. Instead of a 17-hour drive to Kansas to look forward to, Howard Pounds and I were getting ready to fly to Omaha, Neb., rent a car and drive north to go after our first Merriam’s wild turkeys.
Well, the Merriam hunting went off without a hitch, and despite a miss on the first morning we were both tagged out by early on the second morning. Hunting these beautiful western birds with their distinctive white tail fan margins was truly a treat.
Having no way to check the weather, we headed south toward Kansas in a light snow flurry, which about an hour later had turned into an all out blizzard. The only other cars we passed were at the end of erratic skid marks in the snow… out in cornfields. Once we arrived at our destination in Kansas after a grueling 10-hour ride that should have taken about five hours, we settled in.
It was here, in Kansas, where my close encounter took place with an eastern wild turkey. Our first morning out was a cold 27 degrees, but there was no wind. This is very rare in Kansas, where the wind is usually whipping. The birds started gobbling very well at daylight, and we were able to set up on one roosted in an island of trees in a cow pasture. Since it was already daylight, we couldn’t enter the wide-open field to put the decoy out, so we opted to put it right at the fence, which was about 3 yards in front of us.
Our hunt was going just as planned. The gobbler and his posse of jakes flew down in the field right in front of us. He strutted, gobbled and he proceeded to walk right by our setup at about 75 yards. He didn’t pay any attention to us, nor our decoy.
While all this was going on in front of us, we had a bird behind us answering our calls and getting closer. By the time our original bird was out of sight, the bird behind us was too close. There was no way we could turn and set up on him, so we decided to just sit tight.
The next time he gobbled, I swear I could feel his breath on my left earlobe! Howard started to turn the camera at a pace so slow you would need time lapse to see the movement, and I was turning my head at about that same speed trying not to spook the bird.
When I finally saw him out of the corner of my eye, he was standing right next to me. You hear stories all the time about, “I could have reached out and grabbed him” or, “ I could have touched him with my gun barrel.” Well, folks, I literally could have touched this big tom with the JEB’S Headhunter Choke sticking out of the end of my gun barrel. I could feel him drumming in my chest!
He proceeded to walk past me into the camera frame and approach out strutting decoy that was 3 yards away from us. As soon as his tail fan blocked his view, I made my move to get my gun up. At this distance, I knew my shot pattern was going to be about the size of a ping-pong ball. So of course my first shot was a whiff. I think the turkey and I both freaked a little at that point, but when he touched down on the other side of the fence, I rolled him with a load of Spectra Shot No. 6s to the back of the head.
I’ve always said I like to get them in close, but this particular hunt was a little too close!
Here’s a photo of the video that shows Corey’s bird about 3 yards away just before the first shot was fired.
Corey is a member of the group Combat in the Wild, which films hunts all over the world. See their website at www.combatinthewild.com or follow them on Facebook to keep up with all the action.