I Called in My First Turkey During a Lightning Storm

This story, “Thunder Gobbler,” appeared in the October 1987 issue of Outdoor Life.

Awake — not knowing why but wide awake. So suddenly and soberly awake that I could only question whether sleep had ever arrived. I found myself staring straight up from the sleeping bag into blackness so pure that my mind began painting splashes of color to replace the stars that were no longer visible. I had a strange feeling of something being out there in the inky depths above, but what?

I was lying there on the edge of growing concern, involuntarily holding my breath in anticipation of the unknown, when the answer literally cried out. A barred owl directly above me let go a guttural appeal that sent shivers down my spine. He was so close that I felt as though I could reach up and tickle his belly. This would be a good chance to find out whether the owling I’d been practicing was really effective, so I returned his wake-up call to see how he’d react.

I never heard wings. The only clue to his departure was the next hoot, now 50 yards distant. My unexpected response had him quite agitated, and he began chastising such brash behavior. By answering back every other time he scolded me, I was able to keep him fired up and going strong. Soon, we had the whole woods reverberating to an owl serenade as others joined in the fun. At one point, I counted 11 separate barreds and four great horned owls as well, scattered throughout the valley below and arguing in the warm spring air. I’m not sure that anyone other than a fellow turkey hunter could understand arising at 3 a.m. to converse with a bunch of owls, but I loved every minute of it and welcomed the way my last hunt of Indiana’s 1983 wild turkey season was beginning.

By the time this early morning chorus subsided, I could sense a change in the forest around me; the harsh blackness had softened into gray mist and lurking shadows, a few industrious songbirds were jumping the gun, and the overcast sky was causing the morning to slip in without fanfare. I’d gone to sleep pre-dressed in camo fatigues and face paint to save time, so I was ready to begin the hunt and my anticipation was running rampant. Still, there was a little time before daybreak to sit back and reflect on the many happenings of my first gobbler season and some lessons already learned.

My home state is not exactly teeming with wild turkeys, but our ongoing restoration program is making great strides toward changing that. I live in an area that has benefited more than most from all of the dedication and hard work that have gone into this success. Our local birds have not only taken a firm grasp on reestablishing their once-abundant population. but are even expanding their range into zones that until recently were thought unable to sustain a flock. Competition from other hunters is minimal, and good hunting can be had by anyone willing to put in some effort.

Many reputable people had told me of spotting turkeys in the immediate vicinity of my house, but I’d never been fortunate enough to see one myself. In fact, I had not even considered hunting them. It wasn’t until the winter of 1982-83 that the turkey bug bit, and bit hard.

That winter, I was living in a travel trailer and trapping muskrats, minks and beavers on state-owned property in northern Indiana. Among the many fine people I encountered were two who would prove instrumental in my becoming a turkey hunter.

The first was William E. Madden, regional director for the Indiana Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Fish and Wildlife, a longtime family friend and quite simply the finest outdoorsman I have ever known. Bill is a knowledgeable and gifted man who has done immeasurable good for the wildlife and people of Indiana.

Hanging on one wall of his office is the fan of a huge gobbler. Its striking bronze-toned beauty continually kept me distracted when talking with Bill after a hard day out on the trapline. Naturally, our talks often ventured from mink sets to turkey lore. His high regard for the birds, and the warnings he gave me not to take up the sport of turkey hunting because it would lead to an addiction far greater than any other known to man, were more than enough to get “the itch” started.

The other guy I hold responsible for my exit from the sane world is the assistant property manager at the Turtle Creek Fish and Wildlife Area. I first met Ron Ronk that winter when he came to me for some beaver-trapping advice. As the evening wore on and a bottle of Yukon Jack slowly drained, our mutual love of dogs, guns and hunting surfaced. Even though he favors Labradors to Chesapeakes and Remingtons over Brownings, we struck common ground when discussing different types of hunting. When the subject of my home town surfaced, the mere mention of “Bloomington” brought up turkeys.

It seems that Ron had been traveling 200 miles during each of the previous four springs in search of the elusive “gob” just outside that city. I finally got him to divulge his secret spot and learned that he’d been tramping the woods within a dozen miles of my home. Although he had failed to even pop a cap in the vicinity of a tom, his addiction to the sport was obvious by the crazed look in his eyes whenever he spoke of it. Ron became a frequent visitor to the trapping campsite, and his many tales told ’round the fire proved more than ample to further my recent affliction. In short order, we were making plans to hunt together come spring.

In the next few months, I read every book or magazine article about turkey hunting that I could get my hands on. I also spent several hours each day practicing with different types of calls, and attended the sixth annual Indiana State Wild Turkey Calling Championship to pick up as many pointers as possible. By the time Ron came down to do his pre-season scouting a couple of days before the opener, I’d already developed a decent call repertoire and had several turkeys located by their spoor and scratchings. However, I think that the advanced case of “turkey fever” I’d contracted was beginning to affect my sense of perspective, because with all of this newfound knowledge I couldn’t see any way to fail. The first three days of the season took care of such foolish rookie thoughts and proved to be a humbling, but learning, experience.

On opening day, I sat on a high knoll and called sparingly for an hour, then set out to cover some territory I’d failed to scout earlier. Lesson number one: Do your scouting before the season starts. Although I found a primary wing feather and a lot of scratchings on my walk, when passing back over the original calling site I discovered that it had been torn up by a whole flock of turkeys. Adding insult to injury, there was even a large and still-warm J-shaped dropping within 10 yards of the tree against which I had leaned. Indiana law requires that hunters be out of the woods by noon, so I dejectedly headed back to my truck and drove over to see how Ron had fared against the tom he’d roosted the night before.

The lack of a turkey hanging by his spurs from the victory tree beside the campfire ended my expectations. Ron was busily preparing a lunch of venison steaks and fried spuds. We compared notes while we ate.

His turkey had indeed sounded off just after daylight, but had moved sometime during the night. Ron hurried to change positions before the tom flew down. En route, he ran across two other hunters who signaled that still another of their party was already working the bird. Being a good sport and all-around nice guy, Ron backed away and was able to take pride, if nothing more, in the fact that he hadn’t ruined someone else’s chance. Soon, a gunshot sent hen turkeys flying in every direction and made the other hunter one of the privileged few to take an Indiana gobbler. Lesson number two: Don’t hunt along a major access road unless you like companionship. I’d passed Ron’s camper on the way to my area, and there were six other vehicles using the campsite as a public parking lot.

I returned to my knoll later that afternoon and was rewarded at dusk with the sound of four turkeys flying up to roost in the valley below. The following morning found me a short distance from where I’d put them to bed, but I got no answers to my calling and did not see a sign of those turkeys in the next 1½ hours. Because it was well past fly-down time, I crept to the top of the hill to listen. I was hoping that the birds would be feeding along the other side, which was now drenched in sunshine.

As I topped the crest, I could hear footsteps corning toward me through the semi-frozen leaves. Being caught in the open with no place to hide, I just sat down with the 12-gauge across my knee. Suddenly, a huge hen materialized out of nowhere with a jake tagging close behind. The hen spotted me and gave two barely audible putts as she turned to leave, with each step growing progressively longer and faster. I put the sight bead on the jake’s eye and touched off a load of No. 2s.

He wheeled about, ran straight back at me and took off. I stood there for a couple of minutes, regaining my composure, and then checked the yardage (18 large paces) and possible obstructions (there were none). I knew that I must have “choked,” but I ran to where the jake had landed and searched in vain for another two hours in case he had been hit. Lesson number three: Always sit with a tree at your back or with brush in front of you to break up your outline. Those birds had no trouble picking me out, even though I hadn’t so much as blinked and was camoed from head to toe. Lesson number four: Aim at a point along the neck where the caruncles stop and the feathers begin. If you aim too high, you’ll automatically lose half of the pattern as it flies harmlessly overhead. Also, use a shot size small enough to ensure sufficient pattern density to effectively strike a vital area. I went straight out that afternoon and traded my No. 2s for No. 6s.

On the third day, Ron and I hunted together. We heard a tom gobble at daybreak on a distant hillside, but we were both convinced that the miserable great horned owl hoot causing him to sound off was being made by a hunter we’d seen earlier. Lesson number five: Go to the first gobbler you hear unless you positively know that another hunter is after him. We saw that other guy later on and learned that he hadn’t been anywhere near the tom. It had been a real owl! We sat and listened for a half-hour to the first gobbler I’d ever heard, and because we didn’t pursue him we went home empty-handed.

Ron now had to give up and go back to work. I had two more days available before having to suffer a similar fate, so I decided to head out into the Hoosier National Forest and set up camp in a secluded spot where only I would have a chance at any gobblers found. My rookie status was already proving to be enough of a burden to overcome without having to deal with other hunters, too.

Getting to the area I chose entailed driving out on an old county lane that was now more creek bed than roadbed, then hiking four miles straight back into pure wilderness. Trudging over the last high grade, I found myself gazing down on a tract that looked even better than what the topo map had promised. A long, broad valley spread out below me. Twisting through the bottomland was a sparkling stream that emptied into Indiana’s largest reservoir, Lake Monroe. Old pine groves dotted the valley and the surrounding ridgetops. My view of the whole scene stretched from valley head to lakeshore, and I knew that any gobbler announcing his lewd and lascivious intentions to the world come morning would subject himself to my scrutiny as well.

The sun was beginning to set as I warmed a can of soup for dinner, threw my sleeping bag beside a well-worn deer trail and lay back to stare at the stars. The lullaby sounds of nighttime in the woods soon took their toll, and the next thing I heard. was my alarm-clock owl bidding me to rise and shine. Only problem was, the stars no longer shone, and the smell of impending rain was heavy in the air.

After my bout with the owls, I took up a predetermined post against a massive white oak to wait out the last minutes before dawn. As daylight snuck in, those eerie shadows all around me slowly transformed into ordinary bushes, rocks and trees. The sounds of night creepers gradually gave way to those of the day creatures taking their places, and bird songs were joined by the staccato rat-tat-tat-tat-tat of a pileated woodpecker hammering out his nourishing larval breakfast. A sharp-shinned hawk screeched in the distance as he cruised above the treetops, looking for any rodents that hadn’t yet made the safety of their daytime lairs.

I was absorbed in these and all of the other sounds rising up out of the valley as I strained to pick out the one I so much wanted to hear. And then, I heard it! At least I thought I did. Maybe it was just my mind playing games, but my body reacted accordingly. The old ticker jumped two beats and then settled into a frantic pace. I could feel the first beads of sweat on my forehead. That familiar lump of expectation coagulated in my stomach and throat.

What I’d heard was so soft and muffled that I hadn’t been able to get a directional fix, and the minutes dragged by with no further response. Just as I was passing it off as a form of auditory mirage and began focusing my attention on a chipmunk scurrying about my feet, I heard it again. Although many times a far-off sound can be mistaken for a gobble in the anxiety of the moment, when one really does pipe up there is no mistaking it for anything else. This one sounded as though his throat were stuffed with cotton, but I was able to discern the general direction from which it came and knew that I had to get closer.

The ridge on which I sat ran perpendicular to the valley and gradually sloped down to blend into its flood plain. The gobble had come from somewhere below my position, either lower on my ridge or across the valley. Wasting no time, I moved 200 yards downhill and stopped. Five, 10, then 15 minutes passed, but no more gobbles issued forth. The woods around me had come alive, and I was afraid that any gobbling would be drowned out by all of the songbirds. I was mildly cursing to myself over their jovial merriment on this particular morning when — Gil-obble-obble-obble! No cotton this time and songbirds be damned — the king of this valley had spoken.

The volume was so loud and the notes so clear that I knew he was on the roost. The first two gobbles must have slipped out while he was still asleep, dreaming of the day’s promises and kneading the bark off his roost limb as he sleep-strutted, no doubt. Anyway, he was wide awake now and ready to roll. Not a minute ticked by before another gobble rocked the morning tranquility.

These last two vocalizations had given me an exact fix on where he was roosted. Directly across the valley from me was a steep and narrow finger ridge that had long ago been planted in pine trees all the way down its crest; from the ridge top to where the creek trickled by at its base. The tom was about halfway from the top and on the edge of the pines, facing upstream. Nothing but meadow lay between us.

The only way to cross it and not be seen was to first hike a couple of hundred yards toward the lake so that the very pine lot the tom was in would block his view. After traversing the wide-open spaces, I could then work my way back up the creek along his side of the valley, skirting the edge of the pines on their downstream side as I climbed to the top of the ridge. Once above him, I’d set up and try to call him in. This was going to be a long stalk through forest that was as dry and noisy as crinkled rice paper, but it was the only feasible plan and I started out, hoping that he’d stay put long enough to give me a chance.

The old boy kept gobbling from the roost every couple of minutes. I knew that I should be running to get into position, but that strange and sweet music had me hypnotized. I found myself moving 10 steps, then waiting to hear it again. Then, his booming gobble grew muffled, and I knew that he’d flown to the ground.

I was almost in position to cross the valley, but with this new development I stopped to reassess the situation. The tom soon started gobbling again on a regular basis. He had moved out away from the pines but seemed to be staying in one place. I listened to a dozen gobbles in half as many minutes and decided to continue on with the original game plan because he didn’t appear to be going anywhere. I assumed that he had established a strutting pattern and was waiting for the ladies to show up.

Finally, the pines were between us, and I picked up the pace, confident that he couldn’t see or hear my progress. Just as I dropped to the valley floor and came out of the woods, I glanced over the far ridge. What I saw did not please me. In fact, the sinking feeling that my hunt had just ended before it really even began boiled up in my belly. No textbooks or talks with seasoned veterans had prepared me for what loomed ahead.

A long line of ominous black clouds was racing straight at me. Although they were just clearing the horizon and still a long way off, their speed of travel told me that I would soon be getting wet. I now realized that the dull booms I’d earlier thought to be dynamite blasting at one of the many limestone quarries nearby were in fact thunder. Lightning bolts of red were flashing out of the cloud line and creating a beautiful panorama against the backdrop of black. Beautiful, that is, if you ‘re not stalking a wild turkey.

A sense of urgency crept into my intentions, and I scurried across the valley and into the pines. I expected at any moment to be greeted with silence by the tom. but amazingly he seemed to have increased his gobbling. He was now letting them fly at about three per minute. I eased on up the ridge, keeping the pines between us and listened as the volume of those gobbles increased with each step. Knowing that I was getting close, I forced myself to slow down and concentrate on making no noise. The layout of the land was such that I would be able to get within 100 yards of the gobbler before setting up to call, if only I could get there before the impending storm ruined everything.

The pine needles quieted my progress, but to be on the safe side I only moved when the tom gobbled. All this time, the thunder was bearing down on us, and the cracks of lightning bolts were shaking the ground. I guess that gladiator just over the ridge felt threatened by the storm, because whenever the thunder boomed in the distance he’d gobble back a challenge. If lightning were to smack nearby enough so that the trees shook and thunder rolled over us immediately, the tom would go absolutely nuts. It was at this point that I dubbed him “Old Thunderbird.”

I was nearing the edge of the pines when a whole different hue overtook the woods. The cloud line had swept over us, and everything looked as though I were gazing through gray-filtered shooting glasses rimmed with flashing red light bulbs. The black mass speeding by overhead appeared to be clipping the treetops, but the wind at ground level was practically nil. The rain was now only a matter of moments away, and I kept expecting the tom to shut up and run for cover. Instead, whenever there was a break in the thunder, I’d hear him double or triple-gobble. I could just see him in my mind, stretched out and challenging Ma Nature as though to say, ‘I’m the baddest thing you ever put on this green earth, and that high-tech stuff don’t scare me none!” I, on the other hand, did not share those thoughts.

A lightning storm is bad enough. Red lightning is downright worrisome. It seems to strike more often and with greater force. The whole valley was positively glowing with the stuff, and if there had been any place to hide I wouldn’t have been staying around. Seeing as how there wasn’t, I figured that this was as good a place to die as any (much better than most), and because I was already there I decided to stick it out.

Easing out into the open flat atop the ridge, I set up against a huge tulip poplar. Old Thunderbird was off to the side of the pines, downhill from me and in a small ravine that began at my feet. He was only about 80 yards away, and those gobbles sounded as smooth and pleasing to the ear as wind chimes. This was only the second gobbler I’d ever heard, and by this time my body was shaking uncontrollably, my breath was keeping pace with my racing heartbeat, and the diaphragm call in my mouth felt as though I were sucking on a platter.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the light show ended. It traveled on across the valley and, for all I know, back into the ground from which it had come. With its passing, the tom settled down a bit, confident that he’d driven the intruder away, but he still continued to gobble at the last rumbling remnants echoing down the valley. Because I couldn’t find enough saliva in my mouth to wet a postage stamp, I pulled the slate trough call from its duly appointed pocket. I intended to float a soft yelp down to the old warrior to let him know that a sweet young hen up here was so impressed and appreciative of his bravery.

Just as peg touched slate, the rain started. Not a sprinkle. or even an ordinary downpour. No, this was a torrent, a vertical flood. In less time than it takes to read this paragraph, I was soaked to the bone. It felt as though I were standing under a waterfall. trying to look out. The ravine containing the tom was no longer visible because of the deluge, but his booming challenges still carried through all of the running water. I thrust the slate deep into my clothing in a futile effort to keep it dry and moved back just inside the edge of the pines, seeking enough shelter from the onslaught to keep the splatters of rain off my eyeglasses.

I picked a cluster of three pines growing together to afford the greatest backdrop and hunkered down at the base. Pointing my gun in the direction of the gobbles. I prepared myself for the action that I hoped would follow. My reasoning went something like this: “That gobbler is just as drenched as I am and is hot for this hen. If I can convince him that a nice warm hen is keeping dry over in these pines, maybe he’ll want to kill two mammals with one stone: come into the pines to get dried off and get a little lovin’ to boot. The rain would keep his vision to a minimum while helping to distort my less-than-competition-quality calling. I couldn’t lose — or could I?

In the time it took to pull out the slate and protect it from the rain with the brim of my hat, it got soaked. The resulting noise when I tried to yelp sounded like a cross between a creaky door and a screeching cat. My heart dropped into my socks.

Gil-obble-obble-obble. Gil-obble-obble-obble!!’ I couldn’t believe my ears! That ornery cuss was so worked up that he was willing to chase a squeaky box spring for a chance at bedding it!

My mouth call was still in place and moisture was no longer a problem, so I tossed the slate aside and cooed out a timid cluck. If it’s possible to cut into the middle of a cluck with a gobble, that tom did it. Again I sent out a cluck and was answered loud and long. Now for the icing on the cake; a gentle purr-cluck-cluck, and he double-gobbled back so fast and hard that I feared he’d choke. This time, they sounded much closer, and I knew that he was already moving in fast. I stopped calling but the gobbles continued on, each nearer than the one before. I could only see for about 30 feet because of the rain, and before long the tom sounded as though he were sitting in my lap.

Suddenly, the rain slackened below the imminent flash-flood stage, and I spied a big blue periscope peering out from the right side of a tree, just off to the right of where my gun pointed and 30 yards out. Once more, I clucked before suffering another extreme case of dry-mouth. I couldn’t have spit if I’d been eyebrow-deep in a lake. The gobbler proceeded to shake the water from his feathers like a dog and stretched out his neck in song. What a sight! If I never see another wild turkey, it will be all right because that moment made it all worthwhile.

His white-crowned head ducked back behind the tree, and the whole turkey came slinking out the other side. About every five steps, he would gobble and then skulk closer. He looked six feet tall with his neck stretched out to scan my position, but he showed no sign of detecting danger. Without any hesitation, he crossed the point of aim and kept right on coming, angling to my left. The sight bead on the old Herter’s over/under never left his neck, and when he closed the gap to 13 paces with no indication of slowing down, I squeezed the trigger and let the magnum No. 6s work their magic.

Old Thunderbird shuddered under the force of the impact and then fell over onto his side. When he was coming in, he looked so indestructible that I almost expected him to shrug off the shot and come over to beat me senseless. Instead, he just toppled over and lay there. Never flopped, beat his wings or tried to escape. I ran up and placed a foot on his neck but realized that it wasn’t needed. With the shot, he’d collapsed like a broken ship mast, and as I stood over him he seemed to wilt as though the air were escaping from his sails. One huge black eye gazed straight through my soul, he blinked as though just comprehending that he’d been fooled, and then he died.

Now, I know that birds don’t possess these mental capacities. I know that the forest reacts to a single turkey’s death about as much as it will upon my demise. All the same, it was kind of eerie the way the rain stopped right as my victory whoop faded into the surrounding hillsides. Turned off like a spigot.

I couldn’t get over the size and beauty of that bird! I’d only seen one other up that close, mounted, and it had seemed somehow unreal. This was a wild turkey in the flesh! He looked so much larger than life, and none of the many flowery descriptions I’d read of the beauty of this regal bird even held a candle to what lay at my feet. Magnificent!

Read Next: ‘The Gobbler Party’ Is One of Charlie Elliott’s Best Turkey Hunts, from the Archives

The 7½-inch beard and sharp one-inch spurs signified that this was indeed an adult gobbler, and the load strapped to my backpack on the long hike out might just as well have been wings for all that my feet touched the ground. Walking through the dripping forest, I noticed how quiet it had become, as though an integral part of the scene had been taken away. Earlier, I’d thought about how the ringing of those gobbles seemed like a beautiful, but foreign, music drifting in on the peaceful quiet of these rolling Hoosier hills. Now, I just wanted to hear another gobble to assure me that the valley had already adapted to its loss.