The Obsession

I turned over and glanced at the clock. It read 3:30. I sighed and thought, “One more hour to go.” I lay in the dark attempting to sleep till the long expected moment- 4:30 a.m. In the bed beside me, I could hear my grandfather stirring restlessly, awaiting the same thing. The minutes seemed to tick slowly by; one minute seeming like a life time. Then, when I was just about to pass into dream land, I heard the long expecting noise- RING, RING, RING! Finally, the wake-up call. I leapt out of bed and hurriedly got dressed. My grandfather, with the same excited actions, got up and began to shave. Once we were all ready, we loaded up the car and drove to the nearest Love’s. What would possibly make us get up so early? That would require one simple explanation- the turkey hunting obsession.

Stopping at Love’s, we bought a few doughnuts, batteries, ice, and some tape. Happy with our purchases, (especially the doughnuts) we headed out to the hunting lease. Arriving at the gate, we got out and just stood there for a moment, soaking in the delicious coolness of the winter night and gazing at the stars. When we decided that that was enough site-seeing, we undid the gate and drove on through. Driving down the gravel road, I strained my eyes to see of there was any wildlife. Beside the cows and a single mouse, we did not see anything. We parked the truck and my grandfather handed me the shotguns, to which I held on for dear life. We quietly walked until we found the hunting blind. The dead stillness of the woods made everything a bit creepy. Crawling into the blind, we sat and waited.

In a tree beside us, an owl began to hoot. I listened and wandered to myself what the owl could possibly be hooting for. Then I sat up stiff, for I had heard the long, mournful howl of a coyote. I chuckled to myself, wandering why in the world the noise frightened me. As the minutes to dawn approached, I strained my ears to hear the desired call, the turkey tree yelp. Finally, after forty-five minutes of waiting, I heard it, the soft call of a hen echoing through the forest. Ten minutes later, as the horizon began to grow light, the roost, which we had staked out the day before, exploded with the calls of wild turkeys. Slowly, one by one, the turkeys began to fly down from their roost, landing in the field in front of us. I knew that any moment now the turkeys would begin to walk towards the feeder (in Texas it is legal to shoot a turkey at the feeder). My teeth chattering with excitement, I watched as the turkeys began to approach the feeder. I scanned the flock to see if there were any good sized toms within the group. To my disappointment, there were none to be seen, just hens and jakes. The flock of about thirty warily approached the feeder. Looking about them and seeing nothing, they rushed all at once to the feeder. I slowly raised my gun up to my shoulder and picked out a nice sized hen. I took aim and waited for her to raise her head. I waited and waited, and not once did she raise her head. Suddenly, I heard my grandfather fire three shots. The quiet scene before me exploded in wings, feathers, and yelps. When the scene cleared, I saw three hens struggling on the ground. My grandfather and I jumped up and collected the turkeys. After tagging them, we crawled into the blind and waited awhile longer.

At 8:30 a.m., I began to grow discouraged, thinking we wouldn’t see any more. Then, across the field, I saw four turkeys warily walking across the field towards the feeder. They stopped frequently, stretching their necks looking for any signs of danger. My grandfather had gotten his limit, so I had these birds all to myself. As the birds drew nearer, I saw that all of them were toms, BIG toms. I shifted by gun up to my shoulder and waited. When the toms reached thirty-four yards, they stopped and eyed the feeder and the blind suspiciously. I could tell that they saw me and were just about to run for it. So, with my adrenaline pumping through my body and my blood as hot as a red fire poker, I picked out the biggest one, looked down the barrel at his stretched out neck, and pulled the trigger. I was blinded for a moment by the smoke, which quickly cleared. I let down the gun, and to my complete excitement, saw the bird flopping where he dropped. I rushed out of the blind to look at him. He sported a six inch beard and half inch spurs. I was extremely excited, but that goes without saying.

My grandfather and I both decided to call it quits. So, after plenty of pictures and the messy process of cleaning the turkeys, we loaded up the truck and headed down to the local restraunt to eat lunch. We both had an excellent time and look forward to the next hunting trip, when the obsession calls.