Beat, Stabbed, or Shot …

The only charge that guy can really handle is the one to the nearest McDs.

I promised Tommcatt a story.

While these dickheads were running around in camouflage waving guns around and promising violence (btw, the video dude is a fucking nut; I’ve read his stuff before), I was hunting my friend’s ranch in search of the wily Mirriam’s turkey. I blew a shot at 40 yards through poor decision making, moving for a better shot rather than staying put. Anyway . . .

On Sunday I was coming off a ridge after an unsuccessful attempt to run and gun some birds (damn, that’s a good martini – oh, yeah, that’s walking through the woods making hen turkey calls to get a tom to gobble back so you can move in and try to call him in to shotgun range, about 40 yards). I was walking down a trail making hen turkey noises with a mouth call when someone called back from down below, a very weak and poorly executed call by a hunter.

I whistled to him, a two tone whistle we use, and the caller went dead, which told me it was not my friend. Since he had not let anyone else on the ranch, I knew it was a poacher. “OK, if I walk down this trail making turkey noises, that guy will shoot me,” I thought. I advanced slowly, looking for the guy. I sat down off the trail to glass the slope looking for the poacher. Didn’t spot him. “Aw, fuck,” I thought. This part of the state is pretty lawless, and there are some dudes who do what they want. Poachers do not want to get caught or turned in to the cops or Game and Fish.

I came up with a plan. My voice boomed out into the little canyon and hillside. “Don’t shoot me. I am not a turkey. I will be passing above you. ” But instead of going across the slope where the calls came from, I ducked low and headed to the opposite side of the hill, trying to keep a screen of Ponderosas between me and the poacher. Lawful turkey hunters must use shotguns, but a poacher could have a handgun or high powered rifle. I felt like I had a big target on my back as I moved above and away from the poacher. It sucked.

I made it down to where my friend and I started the day seven hours earlier. My friend was up the road but stashed our decoy “Stormy” at the spot. I drank some water and ate a Reese’s peanut butter egg left over from Easter. Although I set up over Stormy and then took a walk up a logging road with my pack and camo Mossberg 500 12 ga pump action shotgun, I had already called it a day and for all practical purposes, the year’s spring turkey season.

I told the story at lunch with a client this afternoon. A former state police uniform and undercover officer, he understood the sensation of having a target on your back.

Interesting to me: buncha southpaws in that group. Either that, or people who haven’t the faintest clue how to sling a rifle across their back.

@redmanlaw: This is one of many reasons I prefer my targets to be made of paper, and affixed firmly to the apparatus of a firing range. ;) No one poaches paper.

@redmanlaw:

…and the wily Turkey has a long and hard laugh at RML.

How many turkey seasons are there? Will you get another chance?

@Tommmcatt Loves The Giant Floating Head: I’m sure it was Mr. Turkey himself working that slate call. The spring hunt lasts another couple of weeks but I am slammed at home and the office with work, so no more trips to the ranch. I may run up to the hiking trails up toward the ski area and listen for some calls at sunrise. After that, there is the fall season, which is in early-mid September. I am getting tired of not bringing home a bird. Maybe I’m just a good shot but a lousy hunter.

Six months until the pre-Halloween deer hunt. Five months until dove, grouse and squirrel.