SOMETHING WASN'T RIGHT
By Mike Faulk

On the riverbank at 6:00 a.m., our timing was good. The coming dawn had just replaced total darkness. While disembarking in the jon boat, the ridgeline just across the main channel of the Holston rang out with at least three distinct gobblers singing their version of "cockle-doodle-do". Excitement was in the air.

Our plan was to turkey hunt from the duck blind. With the ridgeline full of roosting turkey, we assumed they most would most certainly come to the gravel bars to take on grist and to drink a bit sometime over the course of the morning. We'd put a couple of decoys on the bar closest to us at about 30 yards from the blind.

Water level was low and prospects for a weekend rise in that level by TVA power generation from the nearest upstream dam, Fort Patrick Henry, was poor. Art wasn't wearing waders so we had to get the boat to Mallard Island on which the Holston Hilton, my duck blind, is sited. Manuvering the 15 foot jon boat around logfalls, hugging the northern shore was much as possible, and avoiding the shallows around the gravel bars would be necessary to get him into the blind dry.

It almost worked.

The jon boat made it pass the last logfall - all except the cowling of the Mercury 25 horsepower jet drive motor. I ducked the overhanging limbs, but the motor didn't. The "thud" from that impact took place at the very closest point from the sluice to the ridgeline filled with turkey. I was afraid we'd make too much noise coming in but thought my oarsmanship could get us in quietly. I was wrong.

By the time we were setup in the blind and decoys in place, the gobbling and clucking had gone silent. So had every thing else. Throughout this perfectly beautiful 50 degree clear morning, hardly any animal was stirring.

The morning before in nearly identical circumstances had been an outdoorsman's nirvana. On the previous morning we watched four different species of duck, Canada geese, whitetail deer, white-faced fox squirrel, raccoon, otter, muskrat, cormorant, and turkey. The silence of this morning was interrupted only occassionally by a songbird or two.

After noting "It's deader than four o'clock Sunday afternoon", Swann suggested we drift through the sluice - about a one mile trek - calling as we approach the gaps to see if we could locate a gobbler. We did and it, too, was dead. Even the current flowing through the sluice seemed dead. The usual half hour trip through took half again as long.

After a brief stop at the cabin, we decided we'd return to the toehead of Strum Island and set up together, backs to a large, forked, shagbark maple, overlooking the gravel bars from the south side of the sluice.

Calling in 15 minute intervals, our pleas remainded unanswered. We mutually agreed on a noon departure.

As noon came, the beauty of the day, rarely better, caused us to compare schedules to see if we could stay just a little longer. Art said he had a "funny feeling" and I agreed we'd stay a bit longer to wait them out [blind optimists or deluded hunters: your call?].

At 12:03 p.m. we both saw a large bird on the north shore go straight up off the bank into a box elder tree. In answer to my question, "What was that?", Art replied, "Crow, I think".

In less than one minute, the "crow", breaking limbs and surprising us both, set sail across the mouth of the sluice and landed not 20 feet from me to my immediate right. As the hen was flying across the river, Killer shouldered his Benilli autoloader and took aim. As I barked, "Hen, don't shoot", the bird was coming straight at us and - had we been in a vehicle - would have filled the entire field of vision seen through a windshield. It was just that close!

The hen moved behind us heading south - downstream. We both focused on the north shore expecting a gobbler with girls-on-his-mind to follow. Shotguns were in hand. We were still as could be given the stimulation to the nervous system from having that hen fly right up our noses. We dared not call with the hen so close behind us.

Set up on the right side of the tree, I was able to look over my right shoulder and around the tree to locate the hen. To my shock causing me to do a double take, there were now two turkeys behind us - the hen that had flown across and a huge gobbler in full strut facing east toward his girlfriend at slightly under 30 yards distance.

Slowly I turned my head 270 degrees so I could deliver the news to Art. "We've been had," I reported along with the rest of the news about the tom.

The gobbler had been on the island and had moved in behind us silently. Maybe he came to our periodic calling. Maybe it was just his route that morning. Maybe it's where he came to court the ladies each day. Who knows? All I can say for sure is that he was there in all his grandeur which included an 11 inch beard!

I couldn't move without being seen. If I moved to my right, all I had was a left-handed shot with a pump shotgun from a seated or prone positioin. Art was wearing his turkey coat that has the build-in seat rest on which he was sitting. He couldn't get up or rollover because he was pinned down by his own weight on the seat cushion attachment. He could hardly roll out from behind the tree to his left and get a shot off.

While he didn't move his head to communicate with me, Killer shifted his eyes. You'd have to duck hunt once with Art to understand his eyes. The pupils contract when he gets excited. Brother Loy says Art's "beady-eyed". When tracking ducks through the sky, Art's head barely moves. When we duck hunt together and birds are working, I watch the sky about half the time and Art's eyes the other half. I know when it's time to get up and shoot by watching those beady eyes.

Rarely does Swann ever show he's nervous. But his eyes were now dancing - more like break dancing than a waltz! "What are we going to do?" I asked. "We either sit here like two blobs and let them move away or we roll our old, fat butts out from behind this tree", he said. "I've never shot left-handed," I pleaded. "And I've may not be able to rollover. So are we going to try or not?"

In taking a look over my right shoulder to locate and range the gobbler, I got another surprise. There were now two gobblers directly behind us at thirty yards. "Move too quicly to tell Art and we'd be busted," I thought.

The information on location and distance was relayed to Killer. I called the shot and an instant later two very lucky turkey hunters firing two shots had two very fine gobblers on the ground - all without the toms having ever said a word. When behind us, the hen had clucked two times. The boys and the birds loaded the jon boat and departed for the checking station at 12:33 p.m.

Perserverence paid off. Something wasn't right this morning. But we changed tactics, stuck with it, and were rewarded handsomely for our efforts. And the two middle-aged overweight boys, who still love to spend time in the woods and on the water together after 36 years, each acknowledged to the other his inadequacy as a hunter, the role shear luck plays in harvesting any of nature's creatures, and their incredibly blessed lives.