CALUMET, Okla. -- It should be a sin for a hunt to end so quickly, but those few precious moments contained a full day's worth of excitement.
Joe Volpe of Little Rock set up a spring turkey hunt in Oklahoma about a month ago as a warmup for the Arkansas spring turkey season, which begins Monday. We were on schedule until my son hatched an impromptu, all-expenses-paid trip to Alaska that bumped against the Oklahoma turkey trip.
"Anytime I plan anything with you, I give it about a 50-50 shot of actually happening," Volpe said. "I'm going ahead as planned, and I'm going to hunt without you. I hope you can make it."
Making that hunt was not in doubt. Volpe had secured an invitation to hunt a prime piece of turkey real estate about an hour west of Oklahoma City.
"The landowner said there are at least two gobblers with 10-inch beards," Volpe said.
Those bits of intel were significant. Oklahoma's turkey population has experienced a significant crash in recent years. The bag limit in some counties is one turkey, including Canadian County, where Volpe and I hunted. Some of the best turkey hunters I know in Oklahoma haven't heard a turkey gobble all season, so it means a lot to be in a place that offers a chance.
On April 9 at 11:15 p.m., my flight departed from Anchorage, Alaska. We landed in Denver at dawn. As soon as I turned my phone off "airplane" mode, the phone dinged with a text from Volpe containing a photo of him posing with a massive Rio Grande gobbler he'd just shot. He was staying in Norman, Okla., and he asked when I expected to arrive.
"I'm leaving as soon as I get off the plane in Little Rock," I texted. "It's about five hours.
"I thought seriously about flying there from LR, but that would have involved sending all my gear with you," I continued. "And you would have readjusted my sights and put oil on my calls so they won't work."
"You know me well!" Volpe replied.
I arrived in Norman at dusk and slept soundly after a hearty supper.
For Volpe's hunt, the weather was perfect, warm and calm. He said six gobblers made a ruckus, and a hen nearly pulled his gobbler away. He turned the hen, and she brought the gobbler with her.
Seeing how the turkeys acted on April 9 prompted Volpe to take me to a more advantageous spot on April 10. Unfortunately, a big cold front blew in during the night. The temperature at dawn was 43 degrees, and the wind blew about 30 mph. Thermal underwear kept me warm, but I anticipated getting uncomfortable if I were forced to wait too long.
Well after dawn, a turkey half-gobbled, almost like a jake's gobble, but with a deeper tone. I called softly with a diaphragm. The gobbler replied, but he sounded uninterested. I couldn't see the gobbler on the roost, but Volpe, sitting about 15 yards behind me, saw him clearly.
"The wind was blowing him around up there like crazy!" Volpe said. "He'd lurch one way and then the other, holding on for dear life. His tail feathers blew over his head. He was having quite a time up there."
Volpe had placed two hen decoys and a jake decoy in a road about 20 yards in front of me. Instead of pitching down to the decoys, the gobbler pitched out 180 degrees the opposite direction.
"When I saw that, I was thinking, 'This is not going to end well,' " Volpe said.
I continued yelping and clucking softly on the diaphragm. The gobbler continued responding halfheartedly, steadily moving away.
"Call louder!" Volpe hissed from behind. "I don't think he knows where you are!"
Volpe was right. In a near gale swirling among trees, my calls were too soft for the gobbler to locate them.
From a vest pocket I extracted my favorite caller for windy conditions, a dual-chamber box call made by Bill Rhodes of Sheridan. I scratched out a series of wind-piercing yelps, and a second gobbler about 100 yards away responded aggressively. I yelped again with the Rhodes call, and then I hit him with sweeter, higher-pitched yelps from an Eddie Horton box nicknamed "The Heirloom." The distant gobbler bellowed. The disinterested tom that was closer suddenly became very interested. He gobbled with an intensity that made my blood ripple. Competing with the second gobbler brought out his fighting spirit.
I clucked and cackled with both boxes as the second gobbler closed the distance. I couldn't see them, but Volpe could. They had united, probably no more than 30 yards away, and were coming fast.
With the diaphragm, I purred and clucked, and then mixed in a feed call. I interrupted one gobble with a cackle. The tom double gobbled, but I cut him off again. Next time I cut him off midway through a quintuple gobble. He sounded furious.
Then, like magic, the two gobblers appeared on the other side of a barbed wire fence in front of the decoys. They were in full strut, spitting and drumming. They went one way and then the other trying to decide how to get to the "jake" that clearly needed a good thrashing.
Meanwhile, my hyperventilating had fogged my glasses to the point where I peered through a mere opening. I tried to pull heat off the lenses by sucking in air. It worked well enough for me to distinguish which was the dominant gobbler.
They seemed to lose interest in crossing the fence, and I feared they would leave. When the birds separated, I put my Truglo green dot on the boss bird's head and fired one 3-inch round of No. 9 TSS from my Winchester SX3 20-gauge with a Trulock turkey choke. The bird went down without flopping.
Instead of fleeing, the second turkey jumped on his downed brother, spurring and pecking. Wearing a gillie poncho, I rose from my seat and calmly walked to the turkeys. I stood 3 feet away while the live gobbler continued to pummel the dead gobbler, purring aggressively.
"No more caffeine for you, dude!" I said.
The gobbler looked at me as if to say, "I've been waiting to kick his butt since the day we hatched, and when I'm done with him, I've got something for you, too!"
I extracted my smartphone from a pocket, opened the camera app, slid it to the video setting and pointed it at the turkeys.
"Nuh, uh! You ain't putting ME on Facebook!" the gobbler's expression said. I only got a short clip of the gobbler running away.
My bird was a beautiful Rio Grande gobbler with a 101/4-inch beard. His spurs were 1 inch and 11/8 inch. He weighed about 21 pounds. Of course, Volpe said his was bigger.
The interval between my turning the turkeys with the box call to the moment I shot was an out-of-body experience. I was so caught up in the moment that it was all a blur. I had to ask Volpe, "What just happened there? I don't remember any of it!"
"I really can't tell you, man," Volpe said. "I was hyperventilating pretty bad, myself! All I know is that those birds came in on fire! It was beautiful!"
By 7:45 a.m., we were headed back to Norman, satisfied and primed for opening day in Arkansas.