"Turkey Country"

Spring time in Alabama. The very words evoke quiet images and familiar smells of a Southern state in bloom, set ablaze by the yearly explosion of azaleas and other flora. Before long, all of Alabama will be awash in a brilliant, impenetrable green courtesy of native sons like the pine, the kudzu, the honeysuckle, the pecan, and the mighty oak. For a brief period of time between Alabama's puny excuse for winter and its criminally oppressive summer, spring will embrace the state and her people with soft, cool breezes, blue bird skies, and stunning imagery of a grand old place bursting with color.

For a small and fanatical number of Alabamians, the arrival of spring is looked forward to year-round with more anxious anticipation than Christmas morning, the two big races at Talladega, the beginning of summer vacation (for the kids), the end of summer vacation (for the parents), and the leviathan gridiron clash between Alabama and Auburn, all put together. Days are counted backwards from a revered spot on the calendar and then crossed off one-by-one as the winter months plod slowly along towards spring. As the Big Day grows ever closer, work days are cut short by quick scouting trips to the woods; shotguns are cleaned and patterned; old vests are emptied out and their contents inventoried, repaired, and in some cases replaced; small, semi-circular diaphragm woodwind instruments are taken out of their cases and sanitized in order that daily rehearsals may begin in preparation for the big concert before the harshest and most discriminating of audiences; old analog cassette tapes along with new digitally mastered CDs are played repeatedly and their contents scrutinized until the sounds, rhythms, pitches, tone qualities, and cadences are committed to memory; some of us even spend hours at a time sitting motionless under trees in our back yards with our knees bent and our arms held up in front of our faces to condition our bodies for long sits during which any errant movement, no matter how slight, will ensure defeat.

For those of us to whom the foregoing applies in whole or in part, the arrival of spring in Alabama means one thing: turkey season.

The Eastern Wild Turkey that considers Alabama part of its native range is a truly astounding creature. Unlike its human adversary, the wild turkey's fairer sex is the male, to which God and nature awarded the characteristics of grace and beauty. The male turkey boasts rich, colorful plumage and a brilliant red, white and blue head. Among its numerous unique physical attributes, the male exhibits the odd physiological dichotomy of being hideously ugly and breathtakingly beautiful at the same time. The male turkey, or tom, captivates its audiences - comprised interchangeably of female turkeys, juvenile males, other toms, and human hunters - with its dominance-inspired strutting while it spits and drums its monarchical superiority in the hopes of wooing a female long enough to procreate. This arrogant springtime display has seduced many a hunter right along with the hens, adding to the mystique and reverence for the wild turkey.

It is the gobble, the call of the tom, however, that gets first-timers addicted to the sport of hunting wild turkeys. When experienced live and up close, whether from high on the roost or mere yards away on the ground, the turkey's gobble infects the listener and sentences him to a lifetime of hopeless yet euphoric pursuit not unlike the crippling effects of heroine on a first-time user. It only takes once and you're hooked. Part-time, semi-professional wildlife biologists - also known as hunters - will swear they know not only exactly why toms gobble but also precisely when they will gobble. Being well-adjusted enough to recognize that I am neither much of a wildlife biologist nor a turkey hunter, I am settled in my own personal certainty that toms will gobble at just about anything. I have heard them gobble at the sunrise, at dogs, at owls, at crows, at slamming car doors, at paper mills, at trains, at slapping camp house screen doors, at cows, at tugboats, at hawks, at other toms, at hens, and sometimes, amazingly, at me. Hearing a throaty gobble at daybreak and tearing off in the direction of the sound is enough to classify a hunt as a success even if eventually the bird is not harvested. There is just something mystical and special about Alabama turkeys in the spring.

Alabama turkey hunters are among the most blessed anywhere. Our state is home to an estimated half million wild turkeys, a number sufficient to sustain the existing number of hunters as well as the growing number of people flocking (sorry, couldn't help myself) to the sport and spontaneously declaring themselves turkey hunters. The habitat in Alabama is excellent for wild turkeys as it offers the four things they need most - trees to roost in, water to drink, food to eat, and grit to help them digest it. The hens, of course, need also good cover in which to nest, and their poults need it to evade predators for their first few weeks until they learn to fly. Turkeys are incredible at adapting to just about any environment in which they find themselves; as such, Alabama's widely diverse natural habitat offers a broad range in which they flourish. Sweet Home Alabama, indeed.

The visual beauty of the Alabama woods in spring is another part of the allure of hunting turkeys in Dixie. By mid-March in most parts of the state the dogwoods have erupted and dusted the countryside with clouds of soft white flowers. For years the conventional wisdom (translate that as folk lore) was that turkeys will not gobble until the dogwoods bloom. Still today you will hear turkey hunters say that, despite an ephemeral date on a calendar somewhere in Montgomery where the Department of Conservation & Natural Resources decrees the opening of turkey season, the season does not truly begin until the dogwoods bloom. Whether there is a real scientific correlation between the flowering of the dogwoods and the increased testosterone in male turkeys that entices them to gobble in a blatant display of male superiority, or whether these two events happen to occur naturally around the same time every year in utter indifference to one another, I cannot say. I suspect the latter. But I can speak with absolute authority of the true native precursor to turkey season, without which, at least for some of us, turkey season cannot be said to have properly begun.

For a very select few of us turkey season cannot begin until one of Alabama's homegrown authorities is consulted on the matter. There is a small but loyal faction that cannot enter into another turkey season until Tom Kelly's Tenth Legion has been pulled from the book shelf, dusted off, and read one more time. In his classic bible on turkey hunting, Colonel Kelly reminds us what is right about hunting the wild turkey and why it is something to be damned proud of not only to sit down with him to play the game in the first place, but to play the game by his rules, on the ground of his choosing, and with an all too sobering understanding that he will win better than nine times out of ten. Modern advancements in turkey hunting weapons and equipment have leveled the playing field somewhat, as has Alabama's recent legalization of the use of turkey decoys. Embracing those advancements is, thankfully, voluntary at least for now. One can still elect to pursue the wild turkey the right way, without the assistance of decoys, ground blinds, electronic calling devices, or dogs. If you are among those who so elect to hunt the wild turkey, knowing full well it means having to hear success stories from those others more often than you have your own to offer, you should sit down with Col. Kelly and read Tenth Legion before the next turkey season. Not only will your perspective feel strengthened, but you will be proud Alabama is home to the poet laureate of modern turkey hunting.

Alabama is home to some of the best turkey hunting and turkey hunting successes as well. This is turkey country. You will know you have entered it when you cross over the Ben Rodgers Lee Memorial Bridge in Washington County. Winner of five World Turkey Calling Championships and the recognized "father of modern day turkey hunting," Ben Lee, Sr. had as much to do with bringing new people to the sport of turkey hunting and encouraging young turkey hunters as anyone before his death in 1991. The Coffeeville native was and is a state treasure and advanced turkey hunting in Alabama and throughout the country in a way few have before or since. You will know you're in the heart of turkey country when on any given day you are likely to hear a judge or an accountant or a welder or a preacher or a lawyer tell tall tales of past turkey hunts, near misses, and that boss gobbler that got away and haunts them still; when every sporting goods store you enter offers a chance to win a brand new 4-wheeler or bass boat just for killing the biggest gobbler; and when both wives and employers are expected to make do with the spotty attendance and vacant attention of their turkey hunting subordinates who at every other time of the year are so loyal and dependable.

Alabama is a turkey hunter's dream. Just one morning spent in a cool, misty fog among towering pines and behemoth oaks listening to the world and the woods come to life will restore your soul. As the sky slowly brightens to the point you can distinguish it from the tree tops, barred owls begin to announce the coming of the sun with their six-note preludes, while lesser birds begin chirping the understory awake from its slumber. The old boss tom is very jealous of his air time and can only stand hearing others fill it for so long before he feels compelled to step in and throttles a reminder of his self-imposed dominance in the form of his long, vexed gobble. Ah, rapture. The sound that stirs every turkey hunter never sounds so good as when first it is made on a still and silent morning. That first gobble that thunders throughout the woods and shatters the early morning hush jump-starts the turkey hunter's heart and reaffirms why he's there, despite all the stomach-turning defeats of the past.

It is spring in Alabama. The dogwoods are blooming, the birds are singing, the hardwoods are budding, the hens are playing hard-to-get, and the longbeards are gobbling, strutting, spitting, and drumming. As the woods and the countryside experience their annual rebirth so, too, does the turkey hunter. This is when he feels most alive; alone on a woods road before dawn, ears perked and neck arched straining to hear that distant gobble. There it is. He sets out quietly down the road, grateful for one more day in the woods that ring true with the sounds of the wild turkey.



(c) Roger Guilian 2007

"The Postmortem"

AUTOPSY REPORT 07-0001. I hereby certify that I performed an autopsy on the body of the following unsuccessful turkey hunt in the County of Baldwin, State of Alabama, on the date shown above.

From the factual findings and pertinent history, I ascribe the Death to: Multiple Blunt Force Mistakes and Poor Execution Due To Or As a Consequence Of Hunter’s Delusions of Competence combined with Inability to Compete With Harem of Eager Hens, to be described more fully below.

The body is that of an under-developed, poorly prosecuted turkey hunt stated to be two days old. Rigor mortis is fixed. The evidence shows the hunt to have taken place in Clarke County, Alabama. Skies were clear with a wind of less than 10 MPH. Temperature at daybreak was 39 degrees.

The ground upon which the now deceased hunt took place consisted of multiple ridges protruding out of several large swamps with many creeks and guts on the bluffs immediately east of and adjacent to the Tombigbee River, near the town of Carlton. The area of immediate concern recently had been prescribe-burned, with numerous pine stumps still smoldering in the dry spring air.

External examination of the body indicates that the decedent got underway at 0635 hours on Saturday, March 17, 2007 when a tom turkey gobbled on the roost in response to the hollow cry of a barred owl. The hunter who foolishly believed he was capable of undertaking the now deceased hunt went to the general location of the gobble and listened from the road for a second gobble. Upon receiving the second and confirming gobble, the hunter skulked southward forty-five yards into the fresh burn and set up at the base of a blackened pine, the width of which was broader than his narrow shoulders. The tom gobbled another half dozen times on the roost before the hunter offered a short series of tree yelps, which had as much influence on the roosted longbeard as if he had sent up an invitation to the bird to pitch down and share a cup of coffee and read the funny papers. A second round of tree yelps was offered and subsequently ignored by everything but a hen that began to cluck from an area over the hunter’s left shoulder. Rather than call to the hen, the hunter opted to remain silent in order to focus his attention on the longbeard still roosted in his cedar tree some eighty yards away.

Opinion: This is a superficial nonfatal wound to the body of the hunt.

Further dissection suggests that fifteen minutes after the most recent gobble, the hunter offered some excited cutts of which the gobbler finally took notice when he cut the caller off. Another quarter-hour later, a second volley of cutts was fired in the direction of the tom. The hunter, upon getting cut off by another explosive gobble, cutt aggressively toward an accelerando and crescendo that culminated in what was thought to be a fairly convincing cackle. The delusion of “fairly convincing” was reinforced by the tom’s gobble and pitch off the roost to the ground some sixty yards in front of the hunter. Visual confirmation of the gobbler could not be made after he was seen sailing earthward through the canopy. Evidence suggests the hunter remained motionless and waited for the tom to close the distance. Six or seven minutes later, another hen made her presence known with a series of kee-kee-runs that in total lasted a minute or two. Having heard nothing from the gobbler since he flew down, the hunter yelped with as much realism as he could muster. According to the physical evidence, he must not have been able to muster much. Another fifteen minutes passed without a peep from the longbeard. The hunter began cutting excitedly in an effort to rouse some response from the unaccounted for gobbler.

Examination reveals the longbeard answered this series of calls with a long, teasing gobble from a distance of no less than a hundred additional yards away. Physical indications suggest the tom was following a group of hens away from the roost and was kind enough to look over his shoulder and invite the caller to come along to partake of the Caligula-inspired roman debauchery that was only moments away from taking place in the otherwise pristine woods. The hunter almost immediately reoffered his previous cache of cutts and yelps, getting more and more desperate and aggressive as he called. The tom gobbled twice during this cacophony of unchaste chatter coming from the mouth call of the dejected hunter, but each time he gobbled from farther and farther away. As of the last time the longbeard gobbled back at the caller, he sounded as if he were at least two hundred yards away, and possibly in a bottom.

Opinion: This injury to the hunt is fatal, associated with increasing distance between the gobbler and the hunter combined with the suspected presence of multiple hens more willing than the hunter to indulge in the gobbler’s perversions.

The hunter waited another fifteen minutes before deciding the only remaining courses of action were to try to get in front of the fleeing tom and his harem or move to a different part of the property and try to shock a new bird into gobbling. Without turning his head, the hunter slowly sat upright from his shooting position and immediately spooked a hen he had unknowingly called up that was merely fifteen yards off his right shoulder. She took flight and climbed through the tree tops out of sight. Her panicked take-off was capable of alarming any birds within earshot.

Opinion: This injury to the hunt is fatal.

At this point it appears from the examination that the hunter worked his way through the burn, up the opposing ridge and out to a road where he squatted and listened before stepping out of the tree line. He heard the tom gobble twice more to his south, this time very clearly from the depths of a nearby bottom interspersed with hardwoods and pines. The hunter crossed the road and skirted the edge of the bottom before setting up along the edge of a road where he would be able to see an approaching bird for at least seventy yards. The hunter spent the next hour yelping and cutting in fifteen minute intervals before succumbing to the fact that the longbeard had acquired a crippling case of lockjaw and was more than likely henned up for the remainder of the morning.

Opinion: This injury to the hunt is fatal unless it can survive long enough for the gobbler to complete his tawdry business with the hens and begin a new search for companionship.

Internal examination of the hunt reveals an alarmingly low brain weight, indicative of a lack of understanding of turkeys, their movements, their language, and the terrain. Observation of the hunt’s adrenal glands indicate they are of normal size and location, but show an early surge of adrenaline consistent with delusions of harvesting a turkey soon after hearing him gobble. Decreased norepinephrine indicates the onset of deep-seeded depression, most likely brought on by failure to harvest the tom. The heart is of normal size and configuration with signs of having undergone periods of heavy pounding and elevated pressure, probably between the time the bird flew down and when he gobbled from the next county over. Subsequent autopsy of the internal regions of the hunt reveals shaken confidence and frayed nerves. After approximation of the edges, it seems clear that this hunter needs to call up a sharp-spurred longbeard and kill him soon, before he loses not only his sanity but his optimism.

EXAMINER'S FINAL OPINION: The decedent sustained multiple fatal injuries. Fatal wounds were identified involving the gobbler’s flying down and then walking the other way, the hunter’s getting busted by a nearby hen, and the carnal pleasures of springtime turkeys, away from which few if any hunters can lure the male participant.

The remainder of the autopsy revealed an otherwise normal, healthy, and promising turkey hunt with no congenital anomalies that, in the hands of someone who knew what the hell he was doing, might still be alive today over coffee mugs, around water coolers, and across burning phone lines, instead of lying here on this slab being picked apart in an effort to determine how it died.



(c) Roger Guilian 2007