Feb. 8, 1913 
FOREST AND STREAM 
167 
History of the Wild Turkey Gobbler 
The Last of His Race in Michigan 
By WILLIAM B. MERSHON 
T his bird weighed 23^ pounds. It was 
mounted by William Richter, long since 
dead, and one of the best taxidermists of 
his day. After skinning this turkey I remem¬ 
ber he sent the carcass down to my mother, and 
we had roast turkey and it was simply fine. 
I had for many years been a turkey hunter 
and my father before me; in fact, my father 
and I together were always urged by my mother 
to get a turkey for Christmas if we failed to 
get one for Thanksgiving. If there w’as track¬ 
ing snow we were pretty sure to get our bird, 
but without it, it was almost impossible, accord¬ 
ing to our mode of hunting them. 
We would drive out in the country eight or 
nine miles, put up the horse at a farmer’s, and 
with lunches in our pockets start out for the 
day’s tramp. Turkey tracks were generally 
found crossing the road somewhere from one 
piece of woods to another or from the woods 
to a swamp. If they were old tracks, they gen¬ 
erally led to where fresh tracks could be found, 
and in the early days turkeys were quite plenti¬ 
ful. This was back in the 70’s and early 8o’s. 
The tracks having been found, no special care 
was taken to approach the turkeys unseen nor 
unheard, but we would follow the tracks until 
it was evident the birds had seen us and were 
beginning to run. We would follow along until 
finally one track would leave the flock and then 
another, and these single birds starting off would 
go through the most impenetrable places in the 
thickets, crawl through brush heaps and come 
out the other side into the swamps under old 
upturned roots of trees and finally unexpectedly 
almost in your face out from under some small 
clump where it had been hiding would burst this 
tremendous and grand bird into flight. I defy 
anyone not to be startled by the apparition, and 
even when using a shotgun, with No. 2 and 3 
shot, quite often the bird, although within range, 
was missed because of the unexpectedness of 
his appearance, and the startling effect of his 
flight. If we were successful and had gotten 
our one bird, that might do for the day, but if 
we missed and did not succeed in getting up 
with this straggling bird, we would go back to 
the main flock to follow up the next bird that 
separated from the flock. 
Turkeys lie closely at times so one would 
almost step on them. I used to have a Gordon 
setter named Nip—Nip and Tuck were the pair 
—and Nip was very fond of turkey hunting. 
She would follow along and her nose seemed to 
tell her when we were getting anywhere near 
a bunch of turkeys and her tail would begin to 
go back and forth at a rapid rate. Many is the 
turkey I have gotten over her staunch point. 
But to return to the big turkey gobbler. 
This was in the fall of 1886 when Bert Beach 
and I took the train on the old Detroit and Bay 
City road to a little station about nine miles 
from Saginaw, intending to hunt across to 
Reese, a little station on the old narrow gauge, 
the S. T. & H. My recollection is that there 
was a stretch of about four miles of hunting 
territory between, where there was always good 
partridge shooting. Notwithstanding a slight 
tracking snow had fallen the night before, we 
had very slight hopes of turkeys. But we had 
not been in the woods long before we ran on 
to the tracks of four wild turkeys. Our shells 
were changed to coarse shot and we took after 
them. Although the snow was rapidly melting 
and the tracking hard, we did succeed in pick¬ 
ing up the tracks of one, but he got away from 
us and made a long flight and disappeared in a 
little clump of ragged weeds and brush. The 
snow had all gone by this time, and- despairing 
of picking up the tracks again, I had put in No. 
7 shot and had killed four ruffed grouse. 
I had my old black and tan setter Bob, the 
A FINE SPECIMEN OF WILD TURKEY. 
Shot by the author, and the one referred to in the article. 
