A turkey flock with a bunch of bearded shooters hangs out in a local backyard as you drive and scout. You never really saw yourself setting up with your shoulders against a swing-set post and your boots in a sandbox. You just know the day-care center wouldn’t likely give you permission to hunt turkeys. Those birds, they’re members of The Untouchables.

Three longbeards do their thing in a strut zone, gobbling, spitting and drumming — problem is the hotspot is a powerline near houses and the main highway. They’re turkeys you can’t hunt.

Now and again someone who doesn’t hunt but who knows I do (bumper stickers help) says something like: “I don’t know what’s so tough about turkey hunting. I see them next to the road all the time.” They don’t know it’s illegal to shoot one from your truck.

People with backyard turkey flocks consider them the same way they do the songbirds they feed — even if gobblers dwarf goldfinches. When the big birds start to roost on the clothesline T-bars, it becomes a little problem. They want help. These folks don’t realize we have laws against firing a shotgun near occupied dwellings — unless of course you get hunting permission from the dozen houses nearby. It can get a little crazy trying to explain how wary wild turkeys are in the open woods and how seemingly conditioned to humans they are in some suburban situations.

Take the famous Godzilla for instance, a big gobbler that’s been terrorizing one particular victim this spring in Michigan.

So what’s the solution to these suburban turkey flocks you can’t hunt? The Untouchables are wild turkeys too. Some say bowhunting might be the answer, as with suburban whitetails. Should wildlife agencies offer special hunts for these birds?

What are your best turkey hunting sick day excuses?

This time of the year spring gobbler stories are shared by email, Facebook, Twitter, cell phone, whatever. I recently heard from an old friend in update mode. Bob wrote:

Steve, you have a double-dominant turkey hunting gene, where I have a double-dominant fishing gene and a semi-dominant deer hunting gene. I haven't done well with turkeys over the years. Only killed four gobblers, and the first two were with friends so they didn't really count. But over time I have lost many hours of sleep only to not get a single response to my calling on most of the gobblers I've located over the years. Plus, teaching hours are not conducive to deer or turkey hunting. If I ever get to retire, both species are in deep . . .

Yep, there’s some frustration there, for sure. Like many guys, work days and hunting time don't always provide options for both. He continued:

To demonstrate how bad a turkey hunter I am, last spring until the day before the season opened, I had this double-bearded gobbler coming into the bird feeder. Being I have to be in class at 7:15 a.m. I couldn't invest the time, but got up a few times to try to call him in (not over the feeder) but from the woods across the street where I heard the old buzzard constantly.

No one else hunts in this area that I know of . . . never had a response from anything. Someday I will learn to talk turkey but it’s not in the mix for me until I retire.

Being you pursue these birds so intensely, I'm sure you've seen a bunch, probably some bearded hens too (seen a few of them myself, mostly in bars after 12 a.m.) but I thought you might get a kick out of this photo. An obviously foggy day, this bird was around for a couple weeks but disappeared just before the season started. Maybe its bird brain figured something out a season or three ago.

I suggested to Bob it might have been a good time to come down with a highly communicable disease as an out-of-work excuse followed by a sudden recovery after he killed Two Beard.

What would you have done to get a shot at the double-bearded gobbler in my friend's photo? What’s the best “sick day” excuse you’ve ever come up with to go hunting instead of working?