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Forest and Stream 
Vol. LXXXIII. September 26, 1914 No. 13 
The Gentle Art of Wild Turkey Hunting 
Wherein Is Given Some Information That May Help You Bag Your Bird 
" SIP 3i 1914 
By W. P. Porcher. 
The wild turkey is probably the wariest bird 
in the woods. His hearing is the keenest, and 
whether from the sense of smell or from some 
unknown intuition he will take flight and disap¬ 
pear without any apparent cause. For genuine 
stupidity however ithe turkey certainly outrivals 
the goose, as he will come to the call of the 
veriest greenhorn with a piece of cane or an 
old pipe. Like partridge or quail wild turkeys 
will follow a trail or shallow ditch in which 
some corn and leaves have been strewn and walk 
straight into a pen, with an opening at the bottom. 
After scratching the leaves and trash back into 
the hole, they never look down again to find the 
opening through which they came. In this man¬ 
ner great numbers of them are caught. The Pot 
Hunter shoots them from a blind which has been 
previously baited with corn or peas, but the true 
sportsman will only shoot them after he has 
called them to him when they 'have flown from 
the roost in the morning. Once when the writer 
was returning from a visit through a short cut 
in the woods on a beautiful sunshiny morning, a 
flock of turkeys was seen some distance off on 
the edge of the swamp. I immediately, squatted 
behind a large pine tree, and began to look for 
something to call them with. Fortunately I 
found a small piece of cane, and covering one 
end carefully with my closed fist, I began to call 
slowly and to my great delight I saw an old hen 
feeding toward me. I had no gun and was too 
young then to notice which direction the wind 
was blowing from and even hoped that she might 
come near enough for me to catch her. I con¬ 
tinued to yelp and the hen came nearer and 
nearer. With my heart in my mouth and almost 
afraid to breathe, I waited until she got within 
about ten feet of the tree, when I made a terrific 
leap, and all but got my arms around her. I 
had miscalculated the distance however, and she 
disappeared like a brown streak through the 
woods. This gave me a keen zest for turkey 
hunting however, and T -determined never to be 
caught again without my gun and unprepared 
for Mr. Turkey. I had a small muzzle loading 
gun, which I used to load with small shot, or 
chopped up lead, or pebbles, or anything I could 
get, and I determined in future to wrap one 
buckshot in the moss which was rammed down 
on the bird shot, so that I might be prepared for 
large or small game. On a brisk cool winter’s 
morning just one week before Christmas, I spied 
a lonely gobbler on one of my tramps through 
the woods. At first, I thought that it might be 
a tame turkey, but he was too far from home 
for that, so, I determined to try my luck with the 
single buckshot, as I did not suppose that the 
small shot would do anything more than to make 
him run a little faster. I blazed away and to my 
delight he seemed to be very wobbly. I rushed 
up to him and grabbed him by the neck thinking 
that I could strangle him. He was, only wounded 
very slightly, and promptly proceeded to put up 
the fight of his life, and gave me the worst 
iicking with his wings and claws which I ever 
got. 1 conquered him in the end however, and 
carried him home in triumph on my shoulders. 
He was hung up for a whole week and on 
Christmas day he proved to be one of the most 
delicious birds that I ever tasted. 
After this, I determined to know more about 
turkey hunting, so I bribed an old hunter on the 
place by giving him some shot and powder to 
take me with him on his next hunt. Just before 
dark one evening he came for me to go and roost 
a flock of turkeys down in the swamp, where 
he had seen their scratches on the ground. We 
shouldered our guns and marching down to the 
edge of the water over which they always roosted 
we squatted down behind some bushes. After 
waiting a short while he grabbed my shoulder 
and told me to keep still, pointing to some dusky 
forms coming through the bushes. They looked 
abnormally large in the dusk of the evening, 
as they passed within about twenty steps of us, 
and I was dreadfully tempted 
them then. My guide held me with a firm grip 
however, and refused to allow me to shoot as 
he intended to let them roost on the trees, and 
pick them off one by one in the moonlight. I 
saw one only light on a limb and stretch his 
long neck out, looking as though he suspected 
something wrong and flew off to another place. 
After the moon rose we plunged into the water, 
falling into many alligator holes as we went. 
We shot at every dark object on the trees that 
we saw, but never found a single turkey. We 
determined then to try again the next morning 
so we returned home. I put on dry clothes, and 
threw myself on a sofa, only to find myself 
standing up at least a half dozen times during the 
night, dreaming that I was still hunting or that 
my guide had returned for me. Finally the guide 
appeared just before daylight and we returned to 
the spot, confidently expecting to bag at least five 
or six birds. Alas we were doomed to disap¬ 
pointment. We walked through the same water 
and into the same holes and only heard an occa¬ 
sional bird fly up into the air and disappear into 
the swamp. I have shot turkeys many times 
since then over bird dogs and otherwise, with 
(Continued on page 423.) 
Elliot’s Wild Turkey. 
395 
