BY DUANE ADAMS
his article is part of a new series for W2, a series that follows and recalls the adventures of a man devoted to a quest to harvest a turkey in all 49 states that have them. A number of hunters have attempted this feat and an elite few have accomplished it. We hope to bring you the story of another Virginian to do so. It is our hope that you enjoy these articles, and they inspire you take up your own passion whether it be turkey hunting or achieving Master Angler status, upland hunting or even hiking the Appalachian Trail. Please meet Duane Adams and enjoy his turkey hunting story.
As deer hunting closes in Virginia and hunters face the long dreary winter months of January and February, a turkey hunter’s thoughts begin to turn to April.
April is the Holy Grail for every turkey hunter. It is the month spring gobbler season opens in Virginia.
In mid-March, many hunters, bring out their turkey vest, start going through the pockets to make sure their facemask, gloves and calls are ready for opening day. They make a trip to their local sporting goods store to buy a box of shells and usually drive to their hunting location to ask the farmer if they’ve seen or heard any birds. In so many hunters’ minds this is the preparation for spring gobbler season, however, in my mind the preparation starts the day after closing day of the last season.
As stewards of our wildlife, habitat improvement, predator control and educating landowners on how to best manage their property to improve the habitat for the wild turkey are all part of spring gobbler season preparation, for the season to come and all the ones that follow.
Scouting for me starts in late June or early July to check on the health of the brood; how many hens do we see, how many poults? As we keep up with these numbers over the course of the summer and into the fall, we can start to determine the future population of the wild turkey on the land that we hunt.
In late winter, I make it a habit to visit my hunting properties to check on the health of the flock and also to determine if there’s been any changes to the habitat. Farming operations can change, logging operations can impact roost areas, strut zones, and even the number of turkeys that remain on the farm that you enjoy hunting.
In addition, this is the time of year. I break out my calls and start practicing and practicing more and then practicing more (this is also the time of year that my wife usually suggests I continue this in the garage).
Bringing out my favorite shotgun, making sure that everything is in good working order, setting up a target firing down range to make sure that when the opportunity presents itself, I’m in a position make a clean ethical shot on this trophy bird that continues to wake me up at 4 am.
In March, I spend a tremendous amount of time in the hunting woods, getting there well before daylight, listening to where the birds are roosted, where they tend to fly down, where they’re feeding and their general daily habits. Turkeys are a creature of habit and unless something has majorly impacted your hunting property their behavior should be similar to years past. However, none of this should be taken for without proper scouting.
Talk to the farmer; he’s out there every day and can give you some great insight. I’ve also found that making friends with the mailman is also a good source of information as they drive by these fields and farms on a daily basis.
For a passionate turkey hunter all of these preparations play a role in a successful hunt. You can get on stand late and just be lucky, but to consistently harvest a spring gobbler requires year-round effort. I’m also a believer that while calling is important, knowledge of your hunting property and great woodsmanship will enable you to harvest far more turkeys than the person who only put in a little bit of work.
One of my favorite hunting properties is a small 150-acre farm in Orange, Virginia. I was invited to there by a friend of mine. He was a retired minister. He told me there always seems to be a lot of birds on this farm, but he’d never been able to call one in or harvest one.
The first year I hunted that farm with him we had a great encounter on opening day, but unfortunately, he could never get a shot. However, two days later, we bounced back and he harvested his first spring gobbler. My friend Lee is gone now, but that is a great memory of hunting with him on this beautiful piece of property.
Over the years I would hunt this farm on a regular basis, and it quickly became a favorite. I felt like I knew every inch of the farm and felt that I had patterned these birds over the years, and was always confident when I headed out to hunt there.
In 2011 this farm became particularly hard for me to hunt. While nothing had changed with the habitat. The birds seem to have completely changed their behavior. I simply could not figure them out. I took this as a personal challenge and hunted the farm religiously for eight days. However, the birds never consistently roosted, they never consistently flew down, strutted or fed in the same area.
One morning after a particularly frustrating hunt I saw the farmer feeding cattle and waited to have a chat with him. He was always interested in any story I had to tell him about turkey hunting and I enjoyed spending time with him.
That particular morning, I expressed my frustration and told him the birds had completely changed and had me completely puzzled. He mentioned that he had noticed two Toms, flying in off of his neighbor’s property several times that Spring and walking down a hedge row separating two cornfields where he’d never seen birds before and, quite frankly, a particular spot I’ve never hunted.
I thanked him for that information and thought about it all the way home and decided that the next morning, I would set up in that hedgerow and see what transpired.
The next morning, I heard a bird gobble on the neighbor’s not far across the property line and sure enough, I could see him make his way over the property line of the farm and enter the hedgerow which I had set up on.
I made a few soft calls, and he got closer, but then went silent. To this day I don’t know where he went. However, I was now formulating a game plan for this part of the farm and had accepted the challenge that these turkeys were presenting.
The next day was Sunday so I couldn’t hunt at the time, but Monday morning found me tucked into that hedgerow at 5 am waiting for daylight break. I heard two turkeys gobble across the neighbors fence line. I gave them a few soft yelps, sat down and waited. I had put a hen decoy in the freshly plowed field about 20 yards from where I was sitting. After I heard the birds fly down, I gave a few more yelps. They both gobbled. They both came across the property line and started working their way down the hedge row. I only called two more times to which both birds immediately answered the first time, but not the second, but I felt like I was in a good spot.
Suddenly, minutes later, at 50 yards both birds stepped out of the hedge row looking at the decoy and came running across the field. I actually had to wait for them to separate before I had to clean ethical shot. But that day a true Virginia trophy fell in that cornfield in Orange County.
I’ve continued to hunt that farm but I’ve never had birds do that again and I don’t know why they changed their pattern that particular year, but I’m extremely grateful that I took the time to talk to the farmer and he gave me the inside information that I needed to have a successful hunt.
Author Duane Adams resides in Louisa County, Virginia and grew up in West Virginia. He is a life-long hunter, businessman and public servant currently serving as the Chairman of the Louisa County Board Of Supervisors.
