Realtree: Community: White Squall in Wyoming

Right before New England did its flash-flood version of the 40 days and 40 nights, I found wild weather of another kind: May snow. The location? Northeastern Wyoming.

The spring-in-Wyoming hunt started out inocently enough, but things were about to change.

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Several flights west from Manchester, NH, a two-hour, rental-truck drive, and an after-midnight arrival at that western turkey camp, found my hunting bud John Hafner and I on a muddy pre-dawn Polaris Ranger, with lodge owner Jeff Smith at the wheel, and guide Robby Stevens riding in back. Sleep? Sure, when I’m dead.

FIRST MORNING

Sitting in the coal-black dark, I watched as a deep sloping field materialized into view, with roosting cover to our right, and a rugged, mountainous scene all around. The pre-dawn turned to gray drizzle, wet snow, then a full falling of the white stuff.

Merriam’s gobblers sounded off in earshot, and hens yelped their presence to those male turkeys. That group of birds got together and vaporized down the sloping expanse--moving away like woodsmoke from a chimney until they were gone.

It felt like a December waterfowl hunt on Great Bay, but this was spring turkey hunting, Wyoming style. This was a cold-weather gear kind of hunt. Wool or fleece hat pulled down over a baseball cap. Layers of Realtree Hardwoods HD and Advantage MAX-1 HD camo. This was purple-tipped fingers, cold toes, and breath steaming out. Florida it wasn’t. I loved it.

TEXTBOOK TURKEY

That afternoon hunt, legal in WY, was a textbook deal, with a few weather-related twists along the way. Locate the turkey. Call it in. Pull the trigger.

Tracks were pretty easy to find shortly after the snow fell.

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Thunder and falling snow. Scenic vistas of fog, windswept squalls, and clouds towering like pewter-gray blankets. Muddy two tracks, and gobblers below us. Smith encouraged us to ease along the hillside (tattooed with turkey tracks), toward where a gobbler sounded off.

We set up--Rob and Jeff 30 yards behind, and Smith calling softly to pull that unseen turkey from around the bend and forward to our position. I sat ahead of them, to their left, with Haf up on the rise, to the right, in case the longbeard slipped in that way.

Jeff yelped on a friction call. I followed on a mouth diaphragm. Haf clucked softly up above. And that turkey came into view, strutted into a shooting lane, gobbled, paused, head erect, and soon found my tag on its leg. Game over, as the flakes floated down. Its last step in the mud and snow was 30-plus yards away.

FULL METAL HAFNER

Day Two efforts to fill Haf’s tag were in vain. Those devil birds slipped away again.

Day Three. Breakfast strategy. Tactics afield. Second thoughts, and those turned toward redemption. Every turkey hunter who has taken a bird knows the feeling of a buddy still carrying a tag. I’ve been on both sides, and if anything, you want to either get skunked or succeed together.

In truth, it’s all good: being out, getting beaten by the gobblers, and sometimes, yes, putting it all together to get one by the feet. If my turkey--it’s always a “we” effort though, isn’t it?--came in the way they always do on those DVDs, Haf’s was a completely different deal.

Robby spotted two gobblers slipping up the hillside. The sun had beamed through dark clouds that morning, quickly melting much of the remaining snow. We made an end-around--Smith and Stevens were among the best I’ve ever seen at reading the land to put ourselves in a position to get at gobblers to cut off the moving birds. Too late, a hen and jake spooked--sort of. They drifted off. That’s when Smith spied the rest coming. We set up fast.

Steve Hickoff had no problem toughing out the foul weather, heck, he's a resident of the state of Maine!

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THE GRAND FINALE

Tagged out, I dropped back with our two guides. Hafner in combat mode (“I wasn’t even thinking about you guys when I made the move and shot”), waited for the turkeys to appear. No go. After an effort to call the birds closer, Jeff decided to release Haf to reposition on the gobbler we heard spitting and drumming in strut, just over the grassy rise by the sound of it. He slinked out like a snake, aided by his layered mix of Realtree Hardwoods HD and Advantage MAX-1 HD out of which a shotgun poked: a deadfall of tree and sagebrush, moving slowly toward the sound.

Just then, several hens cruised in the direction of our calling: semi-interested, as if saying, “Here we are, where are you?” They softly purred and clucked in nearby view, while Full Metal Hafner, the ongoing movie, rolled on in front of us.

The report of his 870 pump confirmed success. The volley passed all of 40 yards, and the other birds boogied out of there by wing or by foot. Gone, except one fine Wyoming longbeard.

The “hey bud” fist-tap Haf had greeted me with at the Rapid City, SD airport turned into an enthusiastic Ali-in-his-prime punch right then. I even missed the snow just a little. Sleep sure came easy that night.

IF YOU GO

Seven J Outfitters specializes in spring gobbler hunts, plus trophy mule deer, elk, whitetail, antelope, and mountain lion opportunities. Contact them at:Jeff and Deb Smith
P.O. Box 569
Sundance, WY 82729-0569
(307) 283-3443
sevenj@collinscom.net
www.sevenjoutfitters.com