The winter before my fifth season, I scouted long and early. I fiddled with diaphragm calls until I thought my wife might leave. I called birds within walking distance, all longbeards. I learned their patterns. I followed their tracks in the snow, in the punk ice, in the spring-thaw mud. The night before the opener, I out laid my gear, wrote first bird in Sharpie on a three-inch cartridge, and got down on my knees bedside. Come the dawn, I promised, I’d be hauling my first turkey home.
I rose in the starlight, made coffee, fried an egg. It was warm in the yard, with the night sounds strong and the moon still up. I tiptoed through the laurels to the ridge behind the house, moving slow, moving quiet beneath the oaks. A hundred yards into the hayfield a turkey feedlot of sorts had been scratched in the duff, and I set up there and waited. A barred owl called—Who cooks for you?—and another answered right above my head. I shivered, settled back, and closed my eyes. The moon inched into the treetops, and the morning sounds slowed. I dozed, and the mosquitoes woke up. The eastern sky began to glow, and a cresting wave of birdsong pushed the sun and gobbling time my way.
I was ready. And you know what happened?
Nothing.
The woods filled with sound—squirrels, flitting birds, an undulating weasel stalking breakfast. But not a single gobble. I stared at my gun, stared at my hands, stared at the sun, and considered golf. Finally, a couple hours in, I creaked to my feet, having killed nothing but the morning.
I busted brush back to my dooryard, shucked the vest and the gun into the Subaru’s front passenger seat, and went inside for a second cup of coffee. My kids were still sleeping, the dog whined, and my wife whispered from the sleeping loft.
“Get one?”
At least she still entertained possibility.
“No,” I grunted. I went outside, started the car, held the coffee mug between my knees, and started down the long gravel cart path we call a driveway.
And there, in the middle of the drive, not a hundred yards from my front door, was a by-god Eastern wild turkey in full strut—turning in the shadow of pines, lit from behind by a spotlight of rising morning, flexing and standing his ground, daring me to pass.
Uptight Yankee sportsmen, true gentlemen hunters, don’t even quaver when 20-pound birds step barely off the gravel, spit, puff right back up, and all but raise a middle turkey toe in the uptight Yankee sportsman’s direction.
Which is where the story ends.
But consider: You’re dressed for turkey hunting, you’ve been turkey hunting, and you’re driving off to turkey-hunt another piece of land—still, some would say, involved in the process of turkey hunting. You’re in your own driveway, a safe distance from the house, with nothing in harm’s way for a half mile should you miss. The gun’s right there on the passenger seat, the shells are in your hand, a half decade of wanting boils in your blood. What’s a guy to do? Except . . .
Remember. Uptight Yankee sportsmen don’t shoot birds from cars. Uptight Yankee sportsmen look temptation in the eye and take the high road. They balance their coffee mugs, put the car in gear, and inch forward, nudging a 20-pound bird out of the way with the right front bumper of a Subaru.
Uptight Yankee sportsmen, true gentlemen hunters, don’t even quaver when 20-pound birds step barely off the gravel, spit, puff right back up, and all but raise a middle turkey toe in the uptight Yankee sportsman’s direction.
But I have it on good authority that real turkey hunters load their gun one-handed, poke the muzzle out the passenger window, and send an ounce and a half of lead and a few years of hard wanting out into the oak leaves. Without spilling a drop of coffee.
And I have it on good authority that real turkey hunters sleep soundly, with hearts full of triumph and bellies full of wild turkey.
Reid Bryant still comes unglued each turkey season, when toms strut in the pastures and his alarm clock sounds ever earlier. He manages to keep things together with occasional successes, a forgiving wife, and a Subaru hatchback with automatic windows.
