First Turkey Continued:
So, the four of us headed up the buggy trail.  The sun was now getting close to the horizon and the shadows were getting long on the ground. There was no breeze and you could hear very well. After traveling quickly for about 200 yards. I slowed us down to a slow walk, listening for the clucking and purring of the turkeys. I was surprised at how quietly everyone was walking. When we got about half way up the pine island. I could hear the turkeys. We stopped strung out about ten feet apart, each of us looking into the palmettos, for a glimpse of the turkeys. They seemed to be about 30 yards away from their sounds, but to far away to see in the thick stuff.

As it turns out, this is the time of day that the turkeys start to go to roost. They fly up into trees and then pick out a tree to sleep in over night where they can be safe. They usually pick a tree over water, so they can hear any predators in the water as they approach. As we stood there looking, a turkey leaped from the ground and flew almost straight up and landed in a pine tree. Some one, I think it was Bruce, whispered "everyone take aim and on the count of three, everyone shoot". As we all aimed, Bruce counted "one,......two,......", KaBoom!, a  rifle shot came straight out from in front of us. We all were startled, and lost our aim. The turkey in the tree took off, but up from the ground flew more turkeys, two of them landed in pine trees right in front of us. The rest of them kept flying. We individually aimed and start shooting. Boom,Boom,Boom, My shots went towards a flying turkey, but it kept going. Boom, Bob, next to me shot and the tree limb one of the turkeys was sitting on, blew apart and fell. The turkey fell straight down a few feet and then took to wing and flew off. Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom, Bruce and Tom were shooting at the remaining turkey and it fell from the limb, like a rock. Hitting the ground with a thump. Three of us had emptied our guns, in just seconds. Ten shots in all. Tom ran over and found the turkey in the thick palmettos, a hen.

I looked over at Bob, and he was holding his nose, it was bleeding. It turns out, his shot gun has a safety on the back of the barrel that you slide to the side to release it. Bob had done that, but had left his thumb on the back of the barrel. When he fired and the gun kicked, his thumb smacked him in the nose. So he was only able to fire once. It also turns out that his first shot was buckshot, so that's why he blew the limb away. Then we heard "Who is over there". It was John. John and been sitting on a tree stand all afternoon, when the turkey flew up, it was right in front of him. John took aim and fired with his rifle, not knowing we were there, just a hundred yards away from him. When we fired, John had dove for the ground, he thought he had just started a war. As it turned out, the turkey had one pellet in its neck, all that shooting and one stray pellet had done her in. The whole thing could be titled "The three stooges go turkey hunting", but of course there were five stooges in this hunt.

It was getting dark, so we headed back to camp. Bob, now had his nose bleed under control and we picked our way back to camp in the dark. None of us had brought a flashlight, but the buggy trail was easy to follow. Back at camp, Jon and Hoss demanded to see all the deer and hogs we had killed in the barrage of gunfire. We could only sheepishly show them this one unfortunate turkey hen. We have taken kidding about this for years.
This page created November, 5, 2000.by Steve

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