VOL. LXXXVI MARCH, 1916 No. 3 
Florida Furnishes Good Wild Turkey Hunting 
But a Knowledge of the Birds and Some of their Elusive Tricks is Essential in Getting Even a Fair Shot— 
Incidents of a Successful Christmas Hunt 
By Osceola. 
D OUBTLESS there have been other hunts 
just as good. Many more successful as 
to size of bag but for downright satis¬ 
faction to one greenhorn on a turkey hunt I 
maintain this one deserves recording. We had 
planned a short trip down the river after break¬ 
fast and to try some of the bayous for green- 
heads and black mallards, as we call the mallard 
and black ducks, but just as we had the open 
launch ready a severe squall came up, the wind 
having been southwest and with a dash of rain 
veered northwest and on a falling tide we were 
certain to draw a blank unless we went much 
farther than we had planned and so miss our 
promised turkey dinner. 
I was invited to Tom’s to help eat a fine young 
gobbler he had shot when we had been out 
Christmas eve day and Frank was to dine at 
home on a turkey hen shot also by that same 
Tom—Frank’s brother—and a mighty hunter 
after turkeys he is, although not at all a good 
wing shot. He says, “Let ’em be in a tree or 
on the ground and they are mine, but no flying 
for me.” With a dog to find and flush them he 
is almost certain to hunt one down and shoot 
it from the tree by a steady stalk, and that is 
no mean achievement, let me announce to the 
public, for a more wary bit of flesh and feathers 
than that same old turkey I know not to travel 
this corner of the universe. 
Should they scatter without being located, as 
frequently happens when the dog runs on them 
in the thickly wooded swamps, then Tom goes 
off for an hour or two and returning ties up his 
dog, that is not too well broken, a skinny, under¬ 
sized pointer of right good breeding and no 
bringing up,—as your well groomed sportsman 
would maintain—and with the bone from the second 
joint of a hen turkey’s wing such beguiling and 
entreating notes are wafted down the glades and 
across the open piney woods that it seems al¬ 
most impossible for a young bird to keep away, 
Truly the Grandest Game Bird of the Continent. 
and the old hen just knows it to be one of her 
youngsters and drops down right there. Now 
that does seem like taking a mean advantage of 
the bird, perhaps, but so few hunters get just 
the right curl to the “putt” or the rounding to 
the “Turk” that few indeed ever become really 
expert at calling. I might write several chapters 
on good and bad turkey calling, with lots of 
yarns on “almost getting that old gobbler” or 
“somebody must ah skeered him off,” usually the 
excuses of an indifferent hand (mouth) at the 
turkey bone. 
Well! that’s some digression from our duck 
hunt, but it has some bearing as we may find later. 
By the time the weather had settled and we 
had digested our mail with a brief look at the 
last note on the Ancona and Why the Darda¬ 
nelles were yet closed and Where the Ford party 
would eat Christmas turkey, our mid day meals 
were ready and we decided to try a brief quail 
hunt afterwards, feeling sure none of us would 
enjoy a hard hunt. 
We were all three ready about 2 P. M., Tom 
a little indifferent; the ground being wet he 
claimed he had on light shoes and would get 
his feet wet, which we knew was bosh, for a 
fisherman who usually has wet feet all week. 
If it had been a hunt for turkeys he would have 
changed shoes for boots mighty quick or gone 
with the light shoes. 
We struck out the Newport road to the edge 
of the “Quarters,” Frank and.I taking the low 
ground bordering the “head” leading down into 
the branch, while Tom kept to the higher land 
and moved on. Fanny soon showed birds at 
hand and I yelled for Tom, but it was blowing 
a half gale and he was too far off to hear and 
we saw no more of him until we reached home. 
At the rise Frank missed the chance of a shot; 
I drew feathers but we failed to find. Most of 
the birds had gone deep into the swamp, so we 
followed a single one marked down. Again 
Frank failed to get in a shot and I pocketed the 
bird. It was too thick for him even to see the 
