Acceptable limitations by John C. Street

This isn’t a cooking column and I’m not going to attempt to wow anyone with my culinary skills. Let it be noted, however, that Good Wife and I enjoy wild fish and game and have developed, or adopted, a number of very tasty recipes for the fauna we bring home, big, long-bearded spring gobblers included.   

Given our preference for eating from the wild, you may appreciate my disappointment when Good Wife advised that professional responsibilities would keep her out of the turkey woods on the opening Saturday of the spring season. Good Wife, as I’ve explained in other columns, is the shooter of our team so, if there was going to be a big, juicy turkey breast for the barbecue grill that weekend, it would be up to me go fetch it.   

Unfortunately, the barbeque grill is still waiting.  And it may have to wait awhile longer. 

Heaven only knows how many turkeys I’ve killed and eaten over the years but it’s not an exaggeration to say a bunch. Until Good Wife came along, however, most of these birds adorned my table at Thanksgiving, not Memorial Day.   

By the time Good Wife got hooked on spring gobbler hunting, though, I’d reached a stage where I didn’t care to do the shooting anymore but enjoyed arranging the set-up and doing the calling. Over our years of hunting together, this has worked out well for us. I’m not saying I’m the best caller out there but I am inventive and spontaneous and Good Wife … well, let’s just say she – like the female of most predator animals – is very, very good at keeping up her end of the equation.  

There have been many occasions when, as the caller, I have been able – simple by getting up and moving back fifty yards – to convince a love sick gobbler that his girl friend was leaving the area only to have him walk right into Good Wife in his attempt to catch up with her. Hard corps turkey hunters call this “Pulling the string.” It’s easy to understand why. 

Given the fact that I’ve already admitted to having an appetite for grilled turkey breasts, it would probably be appropriate for me to explain why said grill is still waiting. There are, after all, a few of these wily old birds around and I’m not exactly a babe-in-woods when it comes to finding them. Sure, as I’ve admitted, I’m not as ginned up on pulling the trigger as I used to be but the whole truth is that, without Good Wife along, I was having trouble getting excited about the hunt. It was like hearing that old song you used to like to slow-dance to and not having anyone to dance with. 

For several weeks before season came in I had been walking the dogs in the morning between 5:30 and 6:00 and had been hearing at least three different birds. One day I heard five. About a week before the opener, however, the woods suddenly went silent. Knowing that Good Wife wouldn’t be able to hunt the opener, the silence kinda’ made me feel better. 

But on that Saturday morning as I was walking the dogs, the gobblers started sounding off again so I hustled the mutts back to the house in the hopes that I might talk Good Wife into playing hooky for a few hours. No such luck. Her professional responsibilities took precedence.   

And that’s when the idea of going out with my bow struck me. I might end up spending the morning hunting by myself, I reasoned, but, with a fifteen yard accuracy limit, any turkey that responded to my calls would provide plenty of excitement even if there was no way to get a shot.  As it turned out, my reasoning was spot on accurate.  

When the birds – there were three – came off their roost, two of them made a vocally identifiable beeline for a nearby field, no doubt following hens. The third gobbler started moving to my left and, even from one hundred yards away, I could hear the hens in front of him. Try as I might, though, I couldn’t pull the hens in and he wasn’t falling for promises I was making with my call.   

With no other option, I ran to get out in front of the parade that was moving to my left and got myself situated behind a largish hemlock tree that split into two major trunks about four feet off the ground. Thus hidden, I watched the hens and gobblers pass in front of me, the hens scratching and feeding as they went, the gobbler wearing himself out popping in and out of strut whenever one of the hens so much as glanced his way. 

Much to my delight, when I made a few soft purrs on my slate, the gobbler broke away from the hens and came towards me, spitting and strutting until he was about twice my accurate bow range in front of me. And there he stopped, craning his neck to find the new girl. When he couldn’t find her, he nearly did a back flip to get back to the hens he had been following. 

For about ten minutes this little flock stayed within fifty yards of me, the hens feeding while the old gobbler vocalized his frustration at their indifference to his attempts to impress them. Then, apparently remembering some better chow elsewhere, the hens marched off dragging the hapless gobbler in their wake. In a few minutes they were out of sight, a short time after that, out of hearing. 

As this is written, I’m still trying to find a gobbler stupid enough to come within fifteen yards of me and stand still while I go through the protracted process of drawing, aiming and releasing an arrow. Consequently, the poor old grill on the back porch is still waiting to fill its role in the springtime pageant of barbequed turkey 

However, professional obligations don’t last forever and one of these mornings Good Wife will rejoin the team. A long bow and a wooden arrow may be an acceptable limitation when the only objective is a little excitement. But I really like barbequed turkey. And Good Wife is very, very good with a twelve gauge. 

(Author’s Note: Wild turkey breasts on a barbeque grill is one of the simplest, and best, ways to prepare these birds. Simply cut out the big pieces of breast meat, beat them silly with a meat tenderizing hammer and marinade them in Italian salad dressing for a few hours. We use a large, closure type sandwich bag for the marinade process. And, by-the-by, don’t salt and pepper the meat until it is golden brown on both sides. Even a jake will feed four people nicely.)