"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
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
posted by Days Afield Host | 1:27 PM
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