One of the confounding things about turkey hunting is that toms are vocal one day and quiet the next.
It's even more confounding when they are quiet where you are hunting, but they are vocal a few miles away.
That is what I have experienced the entire turkey season. I have not heard a turkey gobble since before the season opened. By no design, Alan Thomas of Benton usually hunts on opposite days of me. He often reports turkeys gobbling in the general area that I have been hunting.
Unbeknownst to each other, we both hunted at Old Belfast Hunting Club on Sunday. I was in the place I call St. Tom's Cathedral, a beautiful patch of mature pine trees where I killed four gobblers in three years. I have seen turkeys there in the fall, but not in the spring since 2019.
I heard turkeys in a wooded draw on opening day of the spring season. Easing quietly along the edge a thin hardwood ribbon straddling a small creek, I heard hens talking softly to each other. They were close. I went "periscope down" and sat right there. I purred on my mouth call. A hen replied with a loud half cackle, but the turkeys steadily went away.
I have had no other contact with turkeys this season.
On Sunday I sat in the cathedral admiring the light filtering through the stained glass of young volunteer oaks and sweet gums. I was so moved by the sight that I shot some photos and sent them to a couple of friends. They responded snarkily that a gobbler was probably watching me while I played with my phone.
"Empty is the soul that cannot see the almighty's face through the stained glass of St. Tom's Cathedral," I replied.
Shortly after I heard a distant shot.
"Somebody got one," I thought. I was happy for that person, but I was also a little jealous.
A few seconds later I heard a second shot.
"That's not good," I thought. "He probably wounded it and tried to shoot it running away. I hope he got it."
A good amount of time later, there was a third shot.
"He probably tried to shoot a wounded turkey on the run," I thought. "Low percentage play. I hope he got it."
About 20 minutes later, Alan Thomas called on my cell phone.
"Hey, man, what's happening?" I asked in my turkey hunter's tone.
"Just sitting here staring at a dead turkey," Thomas replied.
"You're at the club today?" I asked.
"I am," Thomas replied.
"Well, you shot the thing three times!" I said. "What's up with that?"
"You're hunting today?" Thomas asked.
"Yes, I am, and I heard the whole thing. Tell me a hunting story!"
Thomas said he had heard five gobblers bellowing in the morning, but they eluded him. At lunchtime, he decided to hunt a different part of the lease about a half a mile from where he started. He placed a couple of decoys in an opening and sat against the biggest tree available to watch.
"Wouldn't you know, two big gobblers came in behind me," Thomas said.
"That's what they do," I said. "If decoys are in the open, they're going to approach them from cover. Did they gobble?"
"No!" Thomas replied. "They came in quiet. They looked identical. I had to pivot a little. They saw that and started going the other way. I had a killing shot, but I had to take it right then or I wouldn't have anything. I hit him hard. He went down hard, too. He was flopping, kind of pushing himself along with his head on the ground. He was dead. He just didn't know it yet."
To Al's horror, the gobbler rejuvenated and regained his legs. Al shot him again and then ran him down.
"He wasn't going anywhere this time, but I shot him a third time to end his suffering," Thomas said.
It was a dandy gobbler, probably a 3-year old. Its beard was 11 3/8 inches. Its spurs were 1 1/8 inch, and it weighed 20 pounds.
"That's healthy," I said. "A mature gobbler in these woods is usually 17-19 pounds.
"I swear, if I didn't already have two full-body mounts that are a little better, I might would have to make a place for this one," Thomas said.
It was Al's first gobbler since the 2017 spring season. He had hunted nine of the season's 14 days to that point, not counting the many mornings he sat and listened. He said he miscalculated a looping maneuver to ambush three gobblers running together a few days earlier, and he hadn't seen those birds since. Following a hunch and relocating saved the season and enabled him to bag a world-class gobbler.
On Monday, federal magistrate judge Joe Volpe of Little Rock bagged his second gobbler and tagged out in Arkansas for the first time. Decoys figured large in that hunt, as well, but not in a good way. One gobbler flew off the roost and looked as if it were going to land in the spread, Volpe said, but when it approached the decoys, the tom flared like a mallard and flew away.
Two other gobblers came in but veered away, as well. Another bird came in behind them, saw the decoys and started to leave, but Volpe put him down with a heavy 12-gauge load of TSS.
"They didn't like those decoys at all," Volpe said.
"It probably wasn't the decoys," I said. "That boss gobbler that you shot probably scared them away."
Decoys can be counterproductive late in the season if turkeys have had a bad experience with them. Regardless, killing a turkey in Arkansas is one of the most difficult feats in turkey hunting. Killing two is an elite accomplishment. The season ends today.