You don’t always get what you want, but what you need

As you read this, I will be thinking of you, dear reader. I will have risen long before the dawn and situated myself against a small tree surrounded by brambles, briars and gorgeous neon yellow forsythias, which will not reveal their heavenly hues until the sun creeps over the mountains to the east. I will be dressed in 3D leafy camouflage, such that even a turkey’s keen eyesight cannot distinguish me from my scratchy hollowed-out shrub blind.

As 4 a.m. clicks off on my watch, I listen closely to the sounds of the animal world. I can hear a field mouse pushing its way through last autumn’s leaves. He skitters by me to the edge of the field I am facing. An owl hoots “who cooks for you, who cooks for you, who cooks for you alllllll.”

I can feel the presence of another being just downhill from me. It sounds like something chewing on the bark of a tree.

Possibly the small birch that has just popped into buds in the last 24 hours. As the light filters almost imperceptibly on the horizon, the colors of the sky merge from a dark purple to a navy blue, then caress the horizon in a shade of sage green.

As I close my eyes and listen, my nose picks up the faint fragrance of damp wood chips from a site upwind where someone has been cutting firewood. The smell mingles with the musky soil and the warm breeze off the lake as she turns over her depths to another spring.

My mind relaxes into all that surrounds me. I am a part of all of this. I belong here, just as the trees and the sky and the grasses.

Deep in reverie, my ears are suddenly pierced by a screaming, deep-throated gobble behind me. Following are three more higher-pitched gobbles. I conclude that I am very near the roost where these birds have been sleeping in the naked canopy above me. Too close above me. I guess that I am only 20-30 yards away from them. How did I manage to get this close without being spotted or heard? “This is gonna be tough.”

Although I am using a crossbow (my senior shoulders struggle to pull the load of a compound bow anymore). I will have to rest my bow on my knees and not move a muscle until they fly down.

The village begins to awaken. Everyone in the flock has an opinion on where they should land. Gobbles are now just minutes apart, and each bird echoes the others in their claim for dominance. According to the turkey hierarchy, the rightful leader is supposed to get first choice of any hen that is ready to be bred.

As the tempo and frequency of the calls reach a crescendo, the sound of heavy wings beating against their chests, the fly-down cackle erupts. The birds are so close I can hear their landing. At least a dozen behind me and to my left. After the flock has touched down, they all go quiet.

This is game time. My diaphragm call is positioned on my soft palate, held in place by the back of my tongue. I take a deep breath and build up pressure in the back of my mouth. “Erp. Erp. Erp.” Gently now.

The deep-throated Boss Tom screams at me, “Get over here, you foolish, lovesick hen. I am the King, and I command you to my presence!” I form my mouth into a softer grasp on the call and ever so gently, call “erp. erp,” in my most seductive turkey tone.

He screams at me again, demanding that I play the game according to the ancient turkey rules. He expects me to obey those rules, but the goal of this hormone-inspired dialogue is to convince him that I am worth his coming to me.

As we play this mind game, I remember that one of the lessons I’ve learned is that when the tables are turned against nature’s normal patterns, it is best to “shut up and wait.” For at least 10 minutes, there is no sound.

I wonder if he walked away from me. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I see movement through the briars to my left. Fire-engine red, blue and white moving through the small openings in the branches. Slowly, the chestnut brown body appears in the grass, just 10 yards from me and moving left to right, right into my shooting zone.

I lower my head to the stock and adjust my eyes to focus through the scope. At this range, scopes are more of a hindrance than a benefit. I scan his body from head to toe.

Red, blue and white head with a short snood and small caruncles under his wattle. The beard is about 6 inches long, protruding from his chest. He is a jake, a juvenile tom that felt he could outrun the Boss to this estrogen-fired hen. I choose not to shoot him.

Two more jakes follow behind the one in front of me, as he struts into the thick grass covered in dew. I will wait for the Boss Tom with his full fan, long beard and spurs that would make any cowboy proud.

The dew droplets sparkle in the sun. I wait. And wait. After the jakes have waddled out into the verdant field, I hear a deep-throated gobble behind me, headed away from me, down a hill to another field to my west. It is over.

“Should I have taken the shot on the jake?” I ask myself. “No, it’s only the first day of the spring season, and I have 30 more mornings to chase the big guy.”

I get up from the hollowed-out shrubbery blind and begin the walk back to the car. Something catches my eye as I follow the tree line back to the road. A treasure of culinary ecstasy, just inside the tree line. Ramps!

Successful hunting doesn’t always mean you return with what you were pursuing, but if you’re willing to accept what Pachamama offers, you will always return with a full heart.

(Bradley Carleton is the founder and director of Sacred Hunter.org, a privately owned limited liability corporation that seeks to educate the public on the spiritual connection of man to nature through hunting, fishing and foraging. For more of his writings, please subscribe.)