CHAPTER XV

HUNTING TURKEY WITH A DOG

I do not believe there is any safer way of bringing a turkey to bag than by the judicious employment of a good turkey dog, and by that I mean a dog trained especially to hunt turkeys. The hunter, too, who employs a dog must know and act his part well to be successful.

Of all times to hunt the wild turkey with a dog, the autumn and winter months are the best. The dog should be a natural bird dog, either pointer or setter. My choice, next to the pointers or setters, are the terriers, either Scotch or fox. The Scotch terrier makes an excellent turkey dog, due to its intelligence, patience, courage, and snap.

I have had dogs lie by my side when turkeys were gobbling and strutting within a few feet, and never move a muscle until the gun was fired, when they would be upon the bird instantly.

If you employ a dog in gobbling time, he must be thoroughly educated to distinctly know his part, which is to keep at heel or lie at your side and watch without a sound until the bird is called to gun and shot; then the dog is allowed to go and seize the quarry if it is not killed by the shot and making off with a broken wing.

In Alabama I once saw a large gobbler coming slowly to my call over a pine hill about ninety yards away. I fired at him with my rifle as he was moving in a full strut. At the shot, my gobbler tumbled over, but quickly got up and made off at a lively run with one wing hanging. I started after him, at the same time calling to my brother (who was below me on a creek, calling another turkey) to let go his dog. In a moment I saw a gray streak shoot out from the thicket on the creek, and start up the hill in pursuit of the running gobbler. It was my brother's Scotch terrier, and within one hundred and fifty yards the dog overhauled the gobbler, to my great satisfaction, and held him until I arrived. Had I not had the services of a dog at this time the turkey would have escaped, as he could get up the high, rocky slope faster than I.

It is best to take a young dog six or eight months old. The training is easy enough, provided the preceptor knows his part. Like educating a dog for quail, he must get the rudiments before he ever sees the live game, for once a lesson is spoiled a dog is also spoiled. Give him a few lessons before taking him into the woods to hunt turkeys. He must know the turkey is his quest ere he is let loose; and do not loose him until you have found unmistakably fresh signs; for one mistake at such a time will take months to repair.

Teach him to lie down, the same as in quail lessons, no matter if he is a pointer, terrier, or hound. Having taught him to lie down, take him walking where there are trees, logs, and fences, and every now and then suddenly sit or squat down by some tree or fence, calling him quickly to you by soft words and motion of the hand. Make him lie down close to your hip, better the left side if you are right handed, so that by any unexpected move he may not destroy your aim at a critical moment. Teach him to lie on his belly or with his head prone between his forepaws. This is easily done, and will insure a motionless attitude as a turkey is approaching. If he whines under excitement, as some will, tap him lightly with a small switch on the head; this will also make him put his head down, and he will soon understand the meaning of it.

Next get a dead wild turkey, hen if possible, as it is lighter. Take the dog into the yard or field where there are no dogs or children to bother him. Let him play with the turkey a little, while you encourage him, then have some one drag the turkey from him by the head a short distance, while you hold and encourage the dog to go. Let the turkey be hung up in a tree or bush out of his reach; then let him go and take the trail and tree the bird, and encourage him to bark and jump against the tree. Then have it fixed so that after he has jumped and barked a while you can fire a gun or pistol and the carcass falls to the ground and he pounces upon it. Repeat this as often as you have an opportunity. You may keep a wing cut off at the second joint, using that for several lessons before it becomes tainted, but by no means allow him to tear the wing or bite the flesh of the turkey. You might set him after a tame turkey now and then, but this might bring him some day to grief by a load of shot from your good neighbor.

Take the dog with you on a few hunts in the woods for turkeys. If you find a flock, put him after them at once and let him flush them, which he will hardly fail to do. Then, if you can kill one over him, your turkey dog is well-nigh made. Having had your turkeys flushed, you can walk slowly and cautiously in the direction they flew, looking into every tree, and you will soon see one or two of them perched upon a limb. To get your bird now is easy if you have a good rifle; and you had better not be out if you haven't one, as no kind of shooting requires better marksmanship than turkey shooting, especially in the timber. Having treed your turkey, you may get several shots, and meantime the dog is allowed to trot around and bark as he sees fit, as the more noise he makes the more is the attention of the birds diverted from you to him; but after you have looked among the trees in a few hundred yards of the flush, if you have not secured your bird, select a good place to call. Sit down with your back against a tree, or behind a log or fallen tree if that suits you better. Sit quite flat and low, bringing the knees nearly up to the eyes. Call the dog to you at once by a whisper and wave of the hand, and make him lie snugly at your side, looking in the direction you look.

After a few minutes, when everything is still, you begin to call at short intervals. Now and then a low yelp, at first, and if you get a reply, cease calling until the results begin to show up, either by one or more turkeys coming to your call, or in their collecting together in another direction, which is more likely to be the case, from the fact that the mother hen is doing more effective calling than you, or they are inclined to go that way anyhow. In such a case you must get up at once and proceed in the direction you see them flying. Go quickly to where they are collecting. Put the dog after them again and into the trees they will go; you then proceed as at first and continue these tactics until you have got what you want, or have lost them entirely.

This is excellent and exciting sport, and the dog loves it and soon becomes an expert in the chase. But of all methods of hunting the turkey it is the most disastrous, next to baiting, not so much in the number of birds killed, but the turkey has a great dread of a dog, and if too frequently chased by one it will drive the birds out of the locality. It should seldom be practised in the same locality or upon the same flock of turkeys more than once in a season.

The rifle is preëminently the gun to employ in this method of hunting, and there is a great satisfaction in taking a fine bird from its lofty perch in a tall pine, gum, or cypress at one hundred to one hundred and fifty yards, where it would be safe from any shotgun.

Dogs trained to hunt turkeys must not be allowed to run squirrels, hares, deer, or any woodland game. It makes no difference as to quail or prairie game, but in the timber his work belongs to the turkey alone.

In teaching the young dog to grasp a turkey, it should be trained to seize the bird by the neck every time, and not touch the body, as his teeth will lacerate the tender skin and tear the flesh--a thing no true sportsman would tolerate. It is easy to teach the dog not to mouth the game by making him take the neck in his mouth every time an opportunity is afforded. If he takes hold of the body, or mouths the feathers, make him let go and take the neck. He will soon learn this.

The common fox hound also makes a good turkey dog, and takes naturally to it, but he is too noisy. A turkey dog must not yelp or bark on the track before he sees the birds as the hound does. Turkeys are alarmed easily and prefer to run instead of to fly, and if the dog barks on the trail they will run for miles, all the time probably not one hundred yards in advance of the dog. So the dog for turkeys must keep silent until in sight of them, and then bark savagely until they are all flushed. This the pointer, setter, or terrier will do. Be sure to encourage your dog to bark at the turkeys in the trees.

Audubon says: "In the spring when the males are much emaciated by their attention to the hens, it sometimes happens that, in plain, open ground they may be overtaken by a swift dog, in which case they squat and allow themselves to be seized, either by the dog or the hunter, who has followed on a good horse." I have heard of such occurrences, but I never saw an instance of the kind. Good dogs scent the turkeys when in large flocks at a great distance; I may venture to say half a mile away, if the wind is right. Should the dog be well trained to the sport, he will set off at full speed on getting the scent and in silence until he sees the birds, when he instantly barks, and, running among them, forces the whole flock to take to the trees in different directions. This is of great advantage to the hunter, for, should all the turkeys go one way, they would soon leave the perches and run again; but when they are separated by the dog, a person accustomed to the sport finds the birds easily and shoots them at pleasure.

No turkey is going to run very long ahead of a dog, if the dog is in sight and chasing him. A pack of mouthy beagles, or an old, slow deer-hound, giving mouth continually, might keep a turkey in a trot until fatigued; it is possible then that a quick, swift dog like the Scotch terrier or the pointer might rush on and catch him. But the first impulse of the turkey, on the near approach of an enemy, is to fly and not to depend on its legs; though on seeing an enemy at some distance, turkeys will run away and not fly at all.

In the open prairie it is quite another matter. On seeing a turkey or flock of them on a wide prairie, one can, by riding in a circuitous direction, as if passing in ignorance of them, get near and start them into a trot, and keep them trotting by keeping between them and the nearest timber. In this way, although you ride slowly, you will soon run them down. The first indication of exhaustion to be noted will be the dropping of their wings, and when the hunter sees that, he knows that they cannot rise to fly; he then closes in and easily rides the birds down. This is, or used to be, a favorite sport with the cowboys of Texas, in which they sometimes employed a lariat, catching the birds as they would a calf, or shooting them with a revolver. In case neither the revolver nor lariat is handy, they take a bullet, partly split with a knife, and then let the tip of their cow whiplash into the cleft of the bullet; clamping the lead tightly on the lash. Thus armed, they pursue the turkeys until they drop their wings, when, dashing among them, they strike the neck of the turkey with the lash, a foot from the end of the tip, which sends the bullet whizzing around the neck four to six times; and ere the turkey can recover, the cowboy dismounts and secures it.

If there is snow on the ground there is little trouble in following the turkeys by their tracks. I have done but little of such hunting, as sufficient snow seldom falls in the South to make good tracking. When you hunt turkeys on the snow, all there is to do is to find their tracks and follow them carefully until the birds are seen; then observe the same tactics as in stalking them on the bare earth.

In the South they are unprepared for much cold, and at such times will likely be found grouped together on the sunny slopes of hills, or behind some log or fence, to avoid the bitter winds, especially if the sun is not shining. They will then often remain on their roosts half a day rather than alight on the cold snow.

If you attempt to stalk an old gobbler when he is gobbling it is quite easy if you learn the course he is taking and get ahead of him and simply wait. Some men hunt no other way and are successful; but it requires the greatest care, and a thorough knowledge of the woods you are in, so that you may take advantage of ridges, ravines, gulches, thickets, etc.

When you have discovered a flock of turkeys at some distance from you, stop and wait a few moments. If they are feeding, and you are unobserved by them, carefully note in what direction they are moving. It is hard to tell if they are going or coming two hundred yards away, but there is one way by which their movements can readily be determined and that is by their color. If they are approaching, you will notice the blackness of their breasts; or rather the birds will appear almost black; and if a majority so appear, you may be sure they are coming; in other words, if you see one or two of them straighten up, and they look quite dark or black, you can then be certain of their approach. On the other hand, if you notice that they look a lightish gray or brown color, they are going the other way. But do not be deceived, as sometimes a flock has stopped to feed, and they will be turning and facing in all directions while so engaged; occasionally one will straighten up, flop his wings, and look back. Have an eye to the band and you will see if many of them look black or gray. If there are gobblers in the bunch, note their breasts which are blacker than the hens.

There is another way to find the direction in which the turkeys are moving if you cannot see them. When you have found fresh signs in the woods, note the scratches carefully to see which way most of them incline. This is easily determined by the direction in which the leaves are thrown by the birds' feet. Sometimes, if the scratches are made late in the evening, they will look fresh the next morning and thus deceive the oldest hunter. I once saw scratches on an open pin oak and cane ridge; then others at twenty paces, and again at fifty paces still others. After a careful examination of the scratches, I concluded there must be two old gobblers that had made the signs; and, although I knew of twenty or thirty hens and some young gobblers on that ridge, I had no suspicion before that there were any old gobblers. Now, reader, what caused me to suspect from these scratchings that old gobblers were about, and that there were two of them was this: there were but few scratches and at long intervals. The scratches were very large, almost two feet across, while the leaves had been thrown five or six feet back, indicating long legs and large feet with a great stroke. I noticed there were two separate lines of scratches some ten feet apart on the main trend; also the scratches were twenty to fifty yards apart in the direction the birds were going, which indicated that the two birds were walking along at a brisk pace and keeping pretty well in a straight line, feeding as they went.

I believe no man alive or dead has killed more "old gobblers" than I have, and yet the heaviest I ever bagged weighed twenty-four pounds gross. This bird might have reached thirty or thirty-three pounds had he been fat, but it was late in the gobbling season, when the winter fat is run off by constant love affairs, leaving them greatly reduced in weight. This specimen was killed in Trinity County, Texas, where I have found the turkeys to average heavier than anywhere else I have hunted.

Audubon said the wild turkey would soon become extinct in the United States, sixty or seventy years ago; but to date his prophecy has failed in so far as the Southern or Gulf States are concerned. Although here as elsewhere hunted and persecuted without consideration, they are remarkably plentiful still. There are localities in the Gulf States that will not be cleared up or utilized for agricultural purposes in ages to come--if then. The immense swamps--annually overflowed--great hummocks, and the broken, untenable pine hills, will afford suitable retreats for the turkey for generations to come.

Wild turkeys are less understood by the average sportsman or even naturalist than any other of our game birds. It is common to read of the acute olfactory powers of the turkey; that he scents the hunter at one hundred to three hundred yards; the truth is it must be a pungent odor to have a turkey detect it at ten paces.