Oak Duke
Outdoors Columnist
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- Turkey hunting is a challenging and rewarding activity that requires stealth and skill.
- While hunting alone is often most effective, sharing the experience with others offers camaraderie and laughter.
- The author suggests that the humor found in turkey hunting stems from the intensity and challenge of the pursuit.
As the last piles of snow melt off the uplands and turkey gobblers begin gobbling, many of us ponder the best way to take up the challenge.
Yes, it’s true that the “way to get it done” when gobbler hunting is by going it alone, often setting up in a blind overlooking a turkey staging area.
Solitary.
Hunt by yourself and set up in a blind — those are efficient ways because turkeys, and especially the gobbler, are an unforgiving species.
More hunters equal more chances for a mistake … defined as alerting movement.Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.
A gobbler’s eye is ultra discerning and critical, and suffers no mistake. But, if all we did was hunt by ourselves, alone, we would miss the camaraderie, the sharing of wild experiences and all the shared fun.
Like a big red fox running past us on his way to feed those young pups we saw in the old woodchuck den.
Or how about the time we saw the Cooper’s hawk whose “reach exceeded its grasp,” by catching a bird so big that it could only fly 20 yards or so at a time? So it made its way through the woods in 20-yard increments, but never letting go of its prey. Feeling a twinge of spiritual kinship, we said, “Fellow hunter, you had good luck, we sure could use some now, too.”
And admiring the way the sunlight hits a handful of blossoming wild apple trees, covered with what seems like puffy piles of white and pink flowers, experienced only by actually walking in the woods. And then there are the laughs; all the laughs and stories, fooling around, poking fun and good-natured kidding.
Make no mistake about it, turkey hunting is serious business, but maybe even intensified by the humor which is such a part of it.
There is just something about turkey hunting that brings out the laughter and “needling,” unlike any other of the outdoor sports.
Why? Maybe the humor is deeper and stronger than other types of hunts, primarily because of the criticalness of the situation. I like to equate it to being in a schoolroom with a stern teacher. Just can’t stop laughing sometimes. And in those times, the harder we try, the tougher it is.
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Remember those moments when we were not supposed to laugh and the more we tried to hold it in, the stronger the laugh became, so much so as violent, silent, gut-straining shakes? Remember we’d gasp out, finally, “Don’t … don’t … I’ll pee my pants.” The actual incident which created the laughter was situational, impossible to remember, and not worth the effort to explain to someone else. And we always lamely finished the explanation with something like, “Well, I guess you just had to be there.” Felt a bit foolish.
That ambivalent state occurs when in the presence of beings that require we keep perfectly straight composure and that we remain in a controlled and constrained state; be it a teacher, preacher, boss, or a wise, old, humorless turkey gobbler.
Wild turkey gobblers have absolutely no sense of humor and send us to the office in a heartbeat every time they bust us. Their kind has strutted and gobbled across the earth for millennia with nary a snicker, chuckle, giggle, or laugh. They do not have it in their bones to cut us any slack. They are unforgiving and the most deadly serious critters around. They are devoid of curiosity. And they lack any sense of fun. Tom turkeys have only one look, a stern stare.
To a turkey the world is all “black and white” in a metaphorical sense. (They actually do see colors very well.)How sweet it is: Maple syrup season is here in New York, Pa. How weather impacts sap flows
Maybe the reason for their lack of humor lies within their bones. After all, according to recent paleontology, they are the descendants of dinosaurs. And any offspring, millions of years down the line from Tyrannosaurus Rex, must be genetically predisposed to be “dry” and mean-spirited. But perhaps even our modern turkey is more crotchety than his great forbearer T. Rex – down the long tunnel of time, and now a feathered grouchy curmudgeon. Gobblers do not tolerate mistakes. Let them be that way.
You see, actually our ancestors were chased, harassed, hunted and munched by dinosaurs down through the millennia. But we got bigger and stronger and turned into the hunter while they got smaller. And we discovered how good they taste.
Now we are the hunter and they are the hunted.
Maybe there is some innate resentment lodged in a nook in that walnut-sized brain … a tiny recess of their genome that goes all the way back to when their ancestors ruled the earth. But now the hunting boot is on the other foot and as the saying goes, “He who laughs last … laughs best.”
Exposing the Big Game 
Turkeys, wildlife killing fun and camaraderie. Warm, fuzzy feelings at the turkey dinner.