TURKEY CHALLENGE

Play Fairly

EDITOR'S NOTE: There have been times in my hunting career when I've had to fight my natural urge to take a turkey so that I could learn important lessons about turkey hunting. But, on no hunt was my patience tested more than when I hunted with Allen Jenkins, president of Lynch Calls. Jenkins learned to hunt turkeys from an old master during the days when few people even knew what a wild turkey looked like, much less how to call and hunt one.

"J.C. has probably 50 gobblers on his land," Jenkins said later. "But he won't allow hunters to harvest more than eight to 10 birds a year. He wants to have plenty of old gobblers to hunt and likes to see them in his fields. J.C. will hunt almost every day of the season. He'll call maybe 10 to 20 turkeys to within gun range. Although he may let some of his friends bag birds, he only will kill one or two turkeys a season." Beating the turkeys at their own game is why Brown and Jenkins are masters of the sport of turkey hunting.

"Many hunters don't kill turkeys because they don't give the turkeys time to come to their calling," Jenkins explained. "Some younger gobblers will run in to a caller like a racehorse. But, the older gobblers will be much slower and much more cautious. The hunter who beats the old bird will have to play the game the way the veteran birds do, or the hunter can never win fairly."

Then Jenkins mentioned another aspect of the sport that I had never really thought about. "John, the bird you took makes a good case for hunting the old way. We had the opportunity to work with that turkey for almost two hours. We were able to hear him gobble, figure out what he was doing and where he was going, watch him strut and drum and still have plenty of time to shoot if we chose to do so.

"If we had moved on the turkey like you suggested, or if you had crawled to the turkey, more than likely you would have spooked the bird or taken the turkey quickly and missed all the fun of listening to the gobbler and watching him work. No matter what tactic we used, we wouldn't have had as much fun for as long as we did by being patient, letting the turkey work, hunting the old way and playing the game fairly."

Deep down inside I knew Jenkins was right. To further prove the case for turkey hunting the old way, Jenkins allowed Brown to use his mouth caller to try and call a gobbler. However, no gobbler responded. But when Jenkins cackled on his Fool-Proof box, a tom gobbled in response.

Sometimes only a box call will force a turkey to gobble. Many hunters don't realize that a box call sounds exactly like a hen at 30 to 50 yards. The old fashioned boxes call up many gobblers for hunters even today. According to Jenkins, "If you want to call more turkeys, enjoy the sport more and play the game fairly, then try the old way."

TOMORROW: TAKING A HERMIT GOBBLER