Pointers for when in the turkey woods: Wear no red or blue, and let the gobblers come to you

Turkey hunting isn’t a shoo-in, even if you think it is.

Wasn’t it just a decade or two ago that you didn’t know anything about it, while now, you kind of consider it old hat?

Remember back then, on a spring morning, as you headed up the gravel road, after getting coffee and gasoline, wanting to get an early jump on weekend chores, brushing, felling, planting trees, and you saw the feather in the dust just lying there like someone dropped their plume after signing an important document?

You stopped the pickup truck. There was no traffic. The only sound came from the mill across the river. The steady clank and hum, distant, and the wind had not picked up.

It was March, after an easy winter, not a lot of snow, which had melted by then, at least down near town where you had pulled over and gotten out of the cab under a canopy of fir, a few scattered pines.

The air was alive with the aroma of wood, needles, duff and dust, still unstirred so early.

You walked the road behind you and picked up the tail feather. It was broad and long, a handsome banded brown — like walnuts or pecans, and the shaft was a creamy white.

You spun the feather between your fingers. The sun had scaled the peaks of the Bitterroots to the east and showered the road where you stood with mottled shadows and patches of light that seemed to steam.

Turkey. You said to yourself. Merriam.

You had seen the birds over the past couple of years, but not many, as they ran across a road now and again, skirting the edges of fields. You had heard a distant gobble once or twice that seemed so far off and elusive that giving chase was never part of the plan.

Now, you spun the feather in your fingers, held it like a pen, looked around at the mountain’s gradual swoop toward the river, its small benches and openings. The sunlight felt warm as a flannel shirt. Below you, the pasture was always good for hay, its ditches brushed with thorn and crab apple.

The next day you drove to Spokane to the Big Horn Show because the radio said a famous turkey caller was giving lessons and you sat through the seminar three times. Doled out cash for a cassette and a box of diaphragm calls, and practiced until the Panhandle turkey season rolled around in May.

By then you had practiced every day on the way to work, slipping a diaphragm call from the clear plastic container, into your mouth, tasting the metal and canvas cover, feeling the latex like a rubber band with your tongue. You had plugged the cassette into the player under the dashboard and meticulously rehearsed each call, from the putt putt to the clucks that started slow and ended fast, the yelps and purrs, the cackle and soft meow.

You had talked turkey with the men that came into the sporting goods store on Main Street in an effort to learn where exactly a guy should go to find a gobbler.

When you took the kids to daycare, you had them practicing too with a box call. They hung out the window of the truck expecting a slew of gobblers to come running, and then one day … they did.

Three big toms came off a hill dappled with shooting star and arrowroot. The birds’ purple heads and red wattles added even more color to the quiet morning. You and the kids watched in amazement, as the toms raced into the road where you stopped the pickup truck and turned off the key. They fanned their tails and dragged their wings.

One of your daughters looked at you and mouthed the word, Wow.

Keep calling, you whispered, and she did, sliding the handle over the chalk, making it yelp, and then the birds slipped down the hill to the creek, and you were hooked.

Remember that?

The first bird you called was a jake after a snow shower, in a small clearcut that checked out your decoy then putted away. The next morning, you moved near a roosting tree and heard the birds come off, doing the cluck cluck that ended in a whirr of wings, one at a time and then the big tom putted to your decoy, straight from a Mayflower ad. He fanned big and dragged his wings, and you wanted to watch, but blasted him instead. Eureka!

You learned not to wear red or blue in the turkey woods — doltish hunters may mistake you for a bird’s wattle — and to not chase a gobble. Sit still instead and let the birds come to you.

Others learned it the hard way, while you learned from the scuttlebutt, of their mistake, to sit tight, with your back to a tree and your gun on your knees.

If you sneak into another hunter’s call you may get a butt full of BBs: That was the word.

Since their introduction to northern and central Idaho more than 40 years ago, Merriam turkey numbers have burgeoned, the number of birds a hunter can kill in a year has quadrupled and the season was lengthened with an earlier start.

Regardless, calling and killing a turkey isn’t always easy and success is only assured through preparation. Just like back then.

And two rules apply:

Don’t wear red or blue.

And let the birds come to you.

Ralph Bartholdt is a staff writer at the Coeur d’Alene Press. He can be reached at rbartholdt@cdapress.com