If you’ve read the blog post about turkey hunting legends and tag sammiches, then you’ve heard about the Whiskey Turkey. Well, today I want to share the Whiskey Turkey story with you.
It all happened about 4 years ago when my good friend, Eric the Newbie, stumbled across this turkey that liked to roost in the corner of his hunting club’s property line. Eric hunted this bird several times without any luck as the bird would fly down on the edge of his property and then promptly venture onto a neighbor’s property. Eric could never figure out why this bird would not come to his calling and would practically walk the other direction every time he hunted him. One day after being humiliated by the turkey again, Eric bumped into one of the neighboring landowners (we’ll call him Mr. Swine to protect the not so innocent) who asked him if he had any luck that morning. When Eric replied “No,” Mr. Swine told Eric that he had a bird coming onto his property gobbling like crazy every single morning. Eric knew it was the same turkey as Mr. Swine’s property was the direction the turkey was headed each morning. It was then that Eric asked Mr. Swine if he could hunt that turkey, and Mr. Swine gladly obliged. Mr. Swine even gave Eric a little tip to help him kill that turkey as well.
Mr. Swine told Eric that every morning not long after sun up, that turkey would walk over to the spot where Mr. Swine hid his still and eat the cracked corn that he pulled out of his corn mash after a batch of Swine’s White Lightning was finished. Yep, the Whiskey Turkey was rushing over to Swine’s property to get hammered, smashed, messed up in the head, incapacitated, and just plain ol’ drunk. Mr. Swine told Eric that he needed to set up around his still before 8 AM the next morning and Eric would kill that turkey. Since hunting over bait and making your own white lightning is illegal in Alabama, Eric declined to hunt over the still, but he did not decline the offer to hunt Swine’s property.
Eric hunted the turkey a few more times with Swine’s permission to access his property, and Eric still could not kill that turkey. The turkey was much more interested in visiting the still than he was Eric’s calling. Eric got very frustrated with how that turkey seemed to know his every move before he made it, and he named him the Whiskey Turkey. In my opinion, that is when the REAL problems with this turkey began. After naming the turkey, Eric’s problems persisted, and he would wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat chanting, “Whiskey Turkey! Whiskey Turkey! Whiskey Turkey!” To keep from having to commit Eric to a mental institution, his wife forced him to invite me to hunt the Whiskey Turkey with him at his hunting camp.
The night we arrived at his hunting camp, Eric informed me that he had a plan on how to kill the turkey. After he showed me his plan on his aerial map and Google Earth I agreed that there was a pretty good chance the plan would work. Because we had to approach the turkey from an open field I told Eric we needed to be in the Whiskey Turkey’s living room WELL before daylight, which we managed to do.
The next morning we were able to set up about 75 yards from the Whiskey Turkey’s roost tree about 30 minutes before Dawn’s crack even began to show. I pointed out a tree for Eric to sit against, and I quietly retreated about 20 yards behind Eric. I sat down and waited and napped until the Whiskey Turkey woke me with a hearty “Good Morning!!” from his roost tree. Because the turkeys I hunt are sexist turkeys who demand hens to come to them instead of the other way around, I don’t call to roosted gobblers. I wait on turkeys to fly down before I call to them at first light. And that morning I waited on the Whiskey Turkey to fly down before I called to him – at least I thought I did. After about 20 minutes and numerous gobbles from ‘ol Whiskey Turkey I heard a bird pitch down and as soon as that happened I made a sweet hen call that just made the Whiskey Turkey scream in ecstasy… from the roost. I immediately thought I’d messed up with the educated old bird, and I figured he was going to sit in the tree until 10:48 AM waiting on that hen to come to him before he flew down. Instead of the Whiskey Turkey doing what I thought he would do, he then pitched down out of the tree and onto the ground about 20 yards from Eric. When he hit the ground, I knew we were going to be eating turkey for dinner that night as the woods were wide open where we were and there was no reason for Eric not to kill his arch nemesis, unless he was asleep.
I waited for what seemed like a couple of days for Eric to make the shot and put the Whiskey Turkey down, and I was excited to see, up close, this bird that had just been dealing Eric the Newbie fits. I was dreaming of our arrival in camp when we would bring the Whiskey Turkey into camp to show all of the other hunters there how awesome of a turkey hunting team Eric and I were when Eric’s shot woke me from my fantasy. I was still in a daze as I watched the Whiskey Turkey simply laugh at Eric for even attempting to do him harm, turn away from Eric, and skip away. Ok, maybe he was running and not skipping or laughing, but he may as well have been.
The Whiskey Turkey lived another day to tell this story to all of his friends just as Eric lived to hear me tell the story over and over and over again. Yes, in typical friendly fashion, each time I told the story it got more elaborate and grandiose. Despite Eric’s missed shot and the nightmares that he still wakes up in cold sweats to, there are a few lessons to learn from the Whiskey Turkey. The first is never name a turkey. The second is that you really need to pay attention to the turkey and learn his habits if you have the likely pleasure of hunting him more than one morning. The third is that you should mix up your approach to a bird that roosts in the same vicinity each day and try calling him in from a different direction – one that is often harder to get to than any other approach. The fourth is get between a roosted turkey and where he wants to go in the morning, and you’ll kill (or in Eric’s case, get a shot at) him. The fifth is don’t miss – be sure to keep your cheek down on the buttstock of your gun and aim before taking your shot. Don’t rush it and make it count. Now, pass me some of that ‘shine!