Billy Green, owner of “Ozark Ridge Calls,” Lebanon, Missouri, had just called a fall turkey within gunshot range and I passed it up. He was slightly upset. I was too - only more so.
One, I had not seen a beard. Two, it was more than 30‑yards away. Three, my shotgun was in the shop and I used a borrowed gun ‑ Billy’s. I had not patterned it. Four, I had reservations about killing a hen even though they are legal in Missouri’s fall turkey season.
The window of opportunity lasted a mere moment and, while I wrestled with indecision, the bird faded into the brush. Afterward, full of recriminations, I watched threatening skies toss and roll overhead. Even the atmosphere seemed angry - reproachful.
Why, oh why, didn’t I take that shot!?
Just then, low (as in barely audible) feeding-calls sifted in from the left ‑ wild turkey feeding-calls. Without flexing a muscle, a sideways glance revealed the surrounding bluestem was suddenly crawling with hunched-over grazing turkeys. Bent low, methodically waddling through ground cover while scratching and bugging, backlighting glared off their backs in such a way the huge flock resembled a nest of primitive beetles sifting through the brown bluestem. With heads lowered to feed, ovate backs sniggled through the grass creating the illusion.
Green had worked these birds for well over an hour after previously breaking up a small flock. During that time, there was not so much as a purr or whine from them. Nada. They just finally ambled in grazing and bugging as they came. I have never seen that many turkeys in one flock before or since! The bluestem grass was infested with them.
Earlier, Green explained that fall turkey hunting must be laid back to be successful. He elaborated: “Fall hunting is more conservative than hunting them in the spring. I use a cutting call to try to get a response at first and then use soft putts, clucks and purrs to bring a bird in close. There should be long pauses between calls. Kee‑Kee runs usually get definite responses from young and adult birds alike. It is a very important call for the fall but not used much in the spring.”
Green continuously stressed, and restressed, proper rhythms and sequences when calling wild turkey. Paradoxically, he stated, “The worst place to learn how to call turkeys is at a calling contest.
“The rhythms seducing contest judges do not seduce wild turkeys. Their normal calling sequences rise and fall in frequency rather rapidly at times. Calling like that in a contest loses a calling tournament but, in the woods, it might bag you a big tom,” Green emphasized.
He stresses that to call turkeys successfully in the fall, a hunter must use more of their social everyday calls than when hunting them during the mating season in the spring. “You don’t have the crutch, during fall, of spring’s mating calls. You have to know the rest of their language.
However, once you master rhythms and sequences of various calls, you can talk wild-turkey 365 days a year,” he stated. And, with a straight face no less.
Green took three wild turkeys with a bow. He has no idea how many he has taken with a firearm. He guides, selectively, for hunters and his best day in the turkey woods had him call 37‑birds into 11‑setups producing eight shots for clients.
He eventually converted his growing expertise on wild turkey into manufacturing calls for them. “Ozark Ridge Calls” makes diaphragm calls, slate calls and various wooden calls. What separates his product from others is the quality he insists on for material and the ease with which they are worked.
I never had much luck with a diaphragm call. Green’s diaphragms are the easiest to manipulate behind the teeth I have used. For some reason they didn’t invoke the “gag” reflex as readily as others tried. He even has me performing that curious locator “putt” he uses. (He aptly demonstrates this technique on instructional tapes. Would not have believed this call would work if not seeing him waltz several gobblers into view after fooling them with it.)
At the opening of this tale, after Green broke up that first small flock, we parked south ends on terra-gougea for more than an hour before the action related above started. My initial inattention, a cumulative result from previously unsuccessful fall turkey hunts, helped generate the initial indecision on the passed bird. As in: I wasn’t ready!
When the grass suddenly came alive with wild turkeys, a jake stretched his head straight up over brush about thirty yards distant. The shotgun’s bead covered the pale blue dot and immediately discharged. In amazement, I watched that jake fly off with at least half the flock. Then the other half took off. There were so many, they couldn’t all get in the air at once. There was no way to miss but that lucky !*&@*+%#@* jake merged into an airborn mass of fast‑departing feathered‑alarmists and led them “south” in a hurry.
I swung on another out of a second flight taking off about 25‑yards distant. As wings spread to fly, a charge of copper‑plated turkey‑loads crumpled it. I didn’t bother checking for a beard this time.
Fancy it was not. But redemption was pure relief. Peaks and valleys incurred hunting wild turkeys traumatizes your “ticker” quicker than a gobbler “PUTTs!”
Green beat me to the downed bird and held it aloft ‑ a hen. I was just grateful for legal feathers at this point. While stuffing it into a fluorescent mesh bag, he instructed, ” Let’s hurry down the hill and set up my bird.”
Astonished, I stuttered, “Billy, you gotta be kidding! I just pumped two shots into that flock and scared one to death. No way you’re gonna call one of those birds back.” (Shows how little I understood this game!)
“You comin’ or not?” Green sarcastically flung over his shoulder already power-walking down-hill after the flock.
I stumblefooted along behind while wrestling a zoom‑lens onto the Canon. Suddenly, Green belly‑flopped next to a tree propping the gun in front of him after dropping my bird to one side. I parked bottoms against another oak 10‑yards behind Green and focused on him in
the view finder.
Forty‑five minutes later Green coaxed a jake down the Mossburg‑pump’s barrel and thence eventually conveyed it to his freezer.
Doubles!
As Billy Green says, “If you know their language, you can call wild turkey 365 days a year.”
I might add ‑ even when they should know better!