Virginia Turkeys Take Round One

Over the past few years there are two things I have become infatuated with. These are two new ventures I have dove into headfirst, and have quickly climbed to the near top of my priorities list.

The first of the two being traveling the country and chasing fish and game in uniquely beautiful places. There is an irreplicable feeling of curiosity and excitement wondering what big buck is just out of sight over the next ridgeline, or what bite might be lying in wait inside the next weed edge. The stimulated sense of adventure felt on these journeys is beyond comparison, and something you have to experience first hand to understand.

The second new love is hunting spring gobblers. Like many new turkey hunters it seems my first interaction with the largest upland bird in North America came during the pandemic. The sudden influx of free time left me restless and excited to try a style of hunting that had previously been impossible to fit into my tightly packed schedule. After my first sit in the turkey woods, however, I knew I had some schedule reallocating come each and every spring from then on out. After hearing my first gobble cut through the darkness while strutting on the limb I was ready to sign my lifetime membership to the spring legion.

In April of this year I had my first opportunity to introduce these two love affairs to one another for the first time. An old friend of mine, who now lives in Virginia, expressed interest in learning to hunt. My immediate response was to offer to drive down for the opening weekend of spring Turkey season and help get him started.

It can be daunting and stressful when initially presented with the grand challenge of planning a trip, and I won’t bore you with all the details. I wrote a second article detailing all that went into getting ready for the long haul down to Virginia. Needless to say I got my ducks in a row and couldn’t wait to get down there and chase long beards.

Even in the downpour the the spring bloom was still beautiful.

The Virginia hills made quite the first impression on me. The blooming honeysuckle and redbuds decorating every mountainside brought a feeling of peace. It always takes the first deep breath of air on the boat or in the woods for me to realize how silly it is to stress over these trips and it is that feeling that makes it all worthwhile. There was work to do, however, step one was to find the honey hole for opening day.

Pulling down the first forest road, the Virginia hills made quite the first impression on me. Blooming honeysuckle and redbuds decorating every mountainside, and it didn’t take long to come across the first positive sign. Within minutes of exploring the forest roads a hen runs across the roa and down the mountain in front of my truck. First pin dropped. The rest of this scouting trip was far less climatic. I spent my time walking finger ridges, glassing, and calling from the road.

The plan for day one was to hike to the top of the ridge the hen ran down from before sunup. Hoping they would roost back up on the top. The golden rule “Don’t leave fish to find fish” was the major inspiration behind this decision. Given the limited information at our disposal, there were really no bad options at this point.

The three thirty am alarm seemed to ring as soon as my head hit the pillow, fortunately the thirty one degree morning air snapped me out of my daze and got me focussed for the long day ahead. The hunt started with a long hike up the first ridge as planned. Walking by moonlite we made our way up a fireroad as far as it would take us. Owl hooting as I went we ventured off the path and steadily powered through the 800 foot elevation gain. As daylight crept over the distant ridge I was eagerly waiting for the silence to be broken by a tom hammering on the limb. Unfortunately it never came. My owl hoots only elicited a response from other owls and as they carried on up and down the ridge, there was no accompaniment by spring thunder.

As we reached the peak I was still eagerly waiting to hear one gobble. What I got instead was something I had never heard before. It was an unmistakable bass rhythm like someone dropping a lacrosse ball on a kick drum. A sound so low in frequency that if my friend hadn’t also heard it and looked at me in amazement it might not have even registered at all. It was the first time I heard a turkey drum, and he wasn't far off.

Unfortunately my heart pounding excitement faded back to rest without a prize to show for it. Noon rolled around and we hiked back down the mountain and headed for home.

After scouting some other locations, we ultimately decided that our Easter morning/ day two plan was to head back up the same mountain and hope for better luck with the drumming tom from the day prior.

We made the grueling hike back up the mountain, made our setup, and were again greeted by the same drumming from opening day. Lighting struck twice and our spirits were crushed after a brief cat and mouse game with this bird left us in the same spot as day one. No gobbles and no birds coming to calls.

We had drawn a blank, it was time for a big change. We spent the better part of the afternoon on day two driving in new country. I was looking for less dramatic elevation gains with higher numbers of rolling ridge tops and less undergrowth. My hope was the greater number of finger ridges to explore over top of a series of creek beds would hold more birds. Ultimately, it was a hail mary, but we had nothing left to lose.

At least I thought we had nothing left to lose. Our plans were rocked to the core when my buddy was told right before bed that he was being called into work the next day. I failed to put him on a bird and his first hunting trip ended with little to show for it. While I know he understood the highs and lows of hunting as much as anyone who has never gone before can, I still felt a sense of guilt that his labors were unrewarded. Unfortunately day three was going to have to be reworked as a solo venture.

With little knowledge of a new area, my plan was to drive the forest roads in the dark trying to locate a gobbling bird. To my amazement it didn’t take long. A mile down the dirt road I hopped out of the truck to make a few casting yelps on my slate call. A thunderous greeting was returned of four birds gobbling in all directions. Rushing to get ready, I grabbed my gun out of the truck and hurried up the ridge in front of me. After a few more yelps I was able to pinpoint the closest bird to the next ridge over and made a setup, letting a series of furious yelps and cuts each communication was responded to with enthusiastic gobbles from the bird within a few hundred yards.

Deja vu was setting in as time went on and the gobbles continued but showed no sign of inching closer. I took another look at my position and where I thought the gobbles were coming from and realized why this bird was hung up. He was not on the neighboring ridge, was 500 feet above me on a bench on the main ridge the finger I was on jetted from. My watch read nine thirty am, only two and half hours remained to punch my tag. Without much thought, I ran down the ridge to the road and sprinted to my truck. I was able to use the road to loop around the bird and gain a large portion of the elevation in fifteen minutes. I parked the truck, dropped a pin a few hundred yards above where I was now confident that bird was and took off again further up the ridge.

My climb was interrupted by a group of hens scratching exactly where I had dropped my pin, taking care to circle around them trying my best not to spook them. I was forced to make a less than optimal setup slightly lower than I initially planned. My watch read ten am. I didn’t have much time to move again and I was confident the bird was significantly lower in elevation than my new position. I got comfortable and fired off a string of calls. The gobble in response was immediate and much closer than I anticipated. He seemed to have moved up and was now even on the ridge with me just out of sight. After another forty five minutes of calling back and forth with this bird he remained defiant, refusing to close the distance. With forty five minutes left in my trip I got aggressive.

I attempted to slip back down the ridge and circle up the back side of a finger hoping to remain out of his view and earshot. I ran up another two hundred feet of elevation, hoping that my final elevation gain would convince this hard headed bird to come to me. Thirty minutes of shooting time were left once my final setup was made. Sweat pouring down my face and a heart rate near the redline I made my final stand and fired off the same aggressive calling sequence this gobbler hadn’t been able to resist all morning. Only this time my inquiry fell on deaf ears. The remaining thirty minutes crawled by in silence only interrupted by my overly optimistic calling.

Internally I knew what had happened, my aggressive move had burst his personal bubble and I spooked him. I was moving to fast too close and I am almost certain it resulted in him setting his wings and gliding down the mountain far away from the commotion I was causing.

As the timer on my trip came to an end I sat perched on the ridge top looking over the Virginia hills I had spent the last four days in. I couldn’t wipe the smile from my face. Yes, I went home with an empty cooler, but by no means did I go home empty handed. I was leaving Appalachia having learned more about turkey hunting and hunting in general than I ever had in such a brief span. I had covered beautiful country, heard more gobbles than any sit in my brief turkey hunting career, found tremendous amounts of sign, and got a crash course in using terrain to my advantage. I have never been so happy to fail, because unlike many other instances, in this case the learning realization as a result of failing came instantaneously.

I won’t bore you with any more details and apologize for the lack of grip and grin included in this article. However, I have summarized my biggest personal takeaways from this trip in another article coming soon for those interested in learning what exactly those realizations were. The main thing I will leave those reading with though is, never be afraid to pack the truck and head down the road to new country. The odds are in favor of you coming home empty handed, but they are also in favor of you having a new experience you will be sharing with all who will listen for years to come, and that always lasts a lot longer than a cooler full of meat.