Wes Smalling

Star-Tribune Outdoors Editor

I'm too high-strung for turkey hunting. I swear it's going to give me a heart attack someday.

I get all wound up trying to call in a gobbling turkey, second-guessing everything I'm doing, totally wracked with indecision: Move closer, no stay put. Call more, call less, which call do I use? Get the gun up, no wait 'till he's closer. Shoot now, don't shoot. Wait, don't wait. Where'd he go?

Just about every turkey I call in gobbles like crazy and struts back and forth just out of shotgun range. There I am with my gun up, waiting and waiting, unable to move closer or else he'll see me and just not good enough at turkey calling, I guess, to get him to walk those last 10 steps closer. I almost always find a way to screw it up.

Case in point: After canceling travel plans a few times because of the weather, I finally made it to the Black Hills to hunt turkeys a couple of weekends ago. I got there in the late afternoon not expecting much (most of the action is at sunrise). I hiked around for about 15 minutes and let out a few yelps with my box call.

Ba-la-la-la-la-lup!

A turkey gobbled back from about a half-mile away. I moved closer and slinked in between some boulders to call some more and wait. I called and he gobbled, much closer this time. We called back and forth at each other and each time he was getting louder and closer. After a few minutes I could see him through the foliage coming right in. Slowly I lifted the gun barrel over the boulder in front of me. He kept on coming. Just a few more steps and I have him…

From about 50 yards away he turned and walked to my right circling around me. He puffed up, dragged his wing tips on the ground and gobbled. He spit and drummed (a cool, eerie sound they make if you've never heard it).

He strutted and strutted, and I waited, getting more and more antsy and anxious.

My nerves can't handle turkey hunting. Those damn birds are going to kill me someday. Someone will find me lying there in the forest dead from a heart attack. That's why I like duck hunting. You call at the ducks and they either fly into your decoys or they don't. And I really don't care that much if they do. Turkey hunting's way too intense.

So anyway, the big gobbler strutted farther away to my right and, as he did, I had to lean more to my left to keep the gun barrel on him until I was almost sideways. Now's that's where the second-guessing started: I realized that from that awkward position I was probably going to miss the shot. I knew I shouldn't move - just stay still and wait to see what he does - but no of course I did something stupid: I moved the gun around to the other side of the boulder for a clearer shot.

He saw me move.

Busted.

He let out a raspy shock gobble and started flapping his giant wings to fly away. I had to shoot.

I missed.

Or maybe I hit him and the shot bounced off of him because it was from too far away, I don't know, their feathers are like armor from that distance.

Oh well, so it goes. Chalk one up for the turkeys.

At least spring turkey season's over. Now I can relax … until next spring anyway.