Set aside a few minutes to listen to a couple of stories on hunting ruffed grouse and fall turkey in Iowa. One hunt I call my gunny sack day with my first dog, Pitch and another hunting dogless. You'll find a few opinions sprinkled in on the relationship of turkey and ruffed grouse and northwoods grouse hunting compared to grouse hunting south of I90. Watch for upcoming episodes on sharptail grouse hunting in Nebraska and South Dakota, then sharptails & pheasants in South Dakota and ruffed grouse & woodcock in Minnesota.
Set aside a few minutes to listen to a couple of stories on hunting ruffed grouse and fall turkey in Iowa. One hunt I call my gunny sack day with my first dog, Pitch and another hunting dogless. You'll find a few opinions sprinkled in on the relationship of turkey and ruffed grouse and northwoods grouse hunting compared to grouse hunting south of I90. Watch for upcoming episodes on sharptail grouse hunting in Nebraska and South Dakota, then sharptails & pheasants in South Dakota and ruffed grouse & woodcock in Minnesota.
RUFFED GROUSE & FALL TURKEY
“The Gunny Sack Day”
There were days in my younger years when my confidence exceeded reality. One of my favorite ridges to hunt in Iowa was along the Upper Iowa River and we called it Beardmore’s Ridge. Today, it’s public hunting and belongs to the Iowa DNR. It was a fairly big piece of ground and bordered Bear Man’s. Bear Man’s ground was good grouse ground when we first discovered it but over the years, he wrote the book on abusive land practices. He cut every tree he could drag back up the ridge to burn for heat and the rest he stuck in the ground for fence posts. He then over grazed with dairy cattle to ensure that another tree would never take root again. The last time I walked it there was nothing but clay and rocks. You had to wonder how that made him feel to have changed green forest into moon scape.
On this day, Bear Man’s was still good grouse country, but I didn’t need it.
I must have resembled a pack mule climbing the ridge in the predawn darkness. I had two dozen Carrylite (they did not) magnum mallard decoys on my back, then over on this side and occasionally dragging behind me. And my shotgun. It was a steep, rugged climb up the old logging road, but this was hardly a burden. On several hunts I had expectations beyond anyone‘s belief. I can recall once climbing that ridge with my .22 for squirrels, my .224 for coyotes, my bow for deer and my shotgun with just a half dozen duck decoys. In those days I wasn‘t so much concerned with what game I would be hunting, just that I would have the right tools for the job. And one over loaded, 30 minute hike up the ridge seemed more efficient than several lighter loads. For those of you who anticipate the heavy uphill hike, take small steps. Even ridiculously small steps. You’ll find that they aren’t nearly as tiring.
When I first began hunting ‘ruffs along these ridges, in the early fall I would occasionally flush teal and wood ducks from the small pasture stock ponds dotting every ridge. Then in the mid1970’s the farmers sold their cattle and planted corn on the ridge top pastures. That’s when we started shooting Woodies early and then Mallards and Widgeon before ice up. We shot a lot of limits of mallards from puddles not much larger than a double garage.
Even after making the ridge top it was still another half mile to the best duck pond. There were larger ponds but this one really drew the ducks. The mallards came from the Mississippi River just a few miles east. They would follow the Upper Iowa to feed on corn, sometimes on the ridges that we hunted grouse. Some days they left the fields and flew back to the big river and others, they would just settle on the dirt tanks for the day.
Taking a three bird limit of ruffed grouse became common place so before I hunted Minnesota and Iowa in the same day, I hoped for ducks in October and November. At first we hunted ducks on a shallow, back water, off the Upper Iowa. It was sometimes good in the early season for teal and Woodies, but never great once they left. I could count on one hand the number of mallards we shot off that water. Once we started hunting the stock tanks, we abandoned the river all together.
The common scenario was to try to take the most desirable ducks in the morning, then leave the decoys out and hunt ’ruffs and return to jump your decoys at the end of the day. This usually resulted in limits of ’ruffs and ducks. I shot a lot of limits of ’ruffs and Woodies, ’ruffs and Mallards and ’ruffs and Widgeon.
This day it was just me and Pitch and we were prepared for anything. This was the first year I purchased a fall turkey tag. I typically stumbled onto two or three flocks of fall turkey every day of grouse hunting. There were few eagles in the area back then so the turkey puttered around in the open fields for most of the day.
I placed a dozen decoys in the cut corn and the rest on the pond. When in our 20’s we were over eager and over ambitious. Considering that we worked second shift in a foundry and often didn’t get off work until 2:00 a.m. we had time to run home, pack up, pick up a buddy if he could get away from the family and after a 2 hour drive and an hour set up we would hunt till dark.
I blew a call sparingly, mostly just to prove that I didn’t scare the ducks rather than attempt to prove I could attract them. We took great effort to not shoot hens so I let a pair of early Woodies settle in on sharp sounding wings, before good light. Pitch would whine and toss around but she stayed put when told. With shooting light, a drake and hen woody were coasting around in the decoys and soon there was a long dozen mallards with wings cupped, hovering within range. I never saw them circle and here they were drifting down like noisy kites.
I picked out a high drake and just as the lower birds touched water I shot and he folded. Then another greenhead to my left and missed on a straight away with my third shot. I love that loud “splat!” when a big duck hit’s the water but even with a retriever, hate searching for crippled ducks in tall grass or bull rushes.
Pitch was all over the puddle, dragging decoys by their cords to the first mallard in the water. I accepted the duck and without command she was out in the field searching for the second drake. She didn’t need any help with this bird either, I straightened the decoys and we settled back down with the two drakes laying on the grass beside me.
Soon we were buzzed by a flock of woodies but they went down on a different pond just down the ridge. There was a dead tree in the water there and the woodies seemed to prefer it. I was certain that if I didn’t have my ducks by the time we hunted grouse, I could jump these.
Then sometime later I watched a flock of perhaps 30 mallards circling my field decoys, two hundred yards away. I didn’t see them land but didn’t see them come up after a low pass. Mallards ruled over Woodies so I leashed Pitch to a tree branch and walked out of her sight and then began a sneak into the cut corn. Pitch occasionally barked but didn’t wail like many dogs when left behind. I went from crouched to hands and knees and finally belly crawled to the ridge line expecting to be able to confirm ducks in the field. I was pulling my shotgun along beside me, butt first, when I noticed something moving in a standing bean field about 40 yards away. Black, and up and down and here and there, I was puzzled, but certain they weren’t ducks. Then like stick bobbers in a crappie hope they were bobbing closer and closer. Turkey!
I couldn’t move other than to slide my shotgun forward and turn the butt to my shoulder. By now the flock had spilled out of the beans into the cut corn. There were three mature hens and broods. The juveniles were like kids on a playground racing to be the first into the field. As is often the case with ducks and turkey a guy has to worry about killing too many. The way they were spilling around me I was certain that if I kept my head down some of them would walk right over my back. When the nearest one was just feet away, a jake split off to the side near the back. The muzzle blast must have been deafening to the nearest birds and I’m sure they never forgot that corn field thunder. The old hens were making all kinds of racket while several of the juveniles pecked at my flopping bird while others ran aimlessly until eventually the hens had their broods minus one back into the beans and then woods.
That was the shortest of all my fall turkey hunts. Back at the pond, I loosed Pitch and admired the mallards and fall turkey wondering what the rest of the day would hold. With a wet muddy Pitch at my side, I was surprised to have another flock of mallards circling our little pond. Oddly, I could only find one drake and I hit him twice before he fell in the timber behind us. Iowa was on the point system then and drake mallards were 30. I had 90 points and could now shoot any duck. It was getting late in the mourning and Pitch and I were both antsy.
I hid the birds from hawks under some brush, loaded up my pump Weatherby with AA Trap 8’s and we headed into the timber for grouse. We hunted west to avoid looking into the sun hoping it would be high by the time we turned east. There were heavy cedars along the shoulder a few hundred yards ahead that usually held a bird or two. It was very difficult shooting in there but the intent was to push a bird or two to a brushy, rounded point that overlooked the confluence of the Bear and Waterloo Creeks below. I heard flushing but didn’t see anything until we were on the point. Pitch flushed a single that tried to cut behind us. Pitch was all over the grouse when it hit the ground and this was starting to feel like a really special day.
Another half mile ahead and we were on the north side working east at a flatter area with a little room to roam without risking falling off a bluff. The area had been logged just a few years earlier. Like anywhere logging was the best thing for wildlife in these woods. It opened up the canopy to allow brush and small trees to regenerate and the downed tops provided ground shelter until the new growth generated.
Those of you who are interested in the dynamics of wildlife populations, might want to skip over the next few pages. They are extremely interesting to me as much for the facts contained as for the nature of hunters to accept opinion as fact.
You may have noticed that all of my ruffed grouse hunting stories are vintage. I quit hunting ‘ruffs in Iowa and southern Minnesota and Wisconsin about 20 years ago. I had no desire to kill the last breeding pair. You may have guessed from these old stories that either I experienced phenomenal grouse hunting or I’m an unabashed liar. A quick review of the Minnesota DNR Ruffed Grouse Spring Drum Count Surveys (see illustration 10) will tell my story. In more than 20 years of surveys, the Southeast zone as defined on their map, had the highest drum count per stop, of all zones in the state, every year but two. It tied a northern zone once and was slightly behind just one zone one year. Think about that. Here we have the Minnesota DNR touting the northern zones as containing the highest numbers of ruffed grouse and the best ruffed grouse hunting in the state when in fact, that statement was never true.
One of the most important factors to the southeast being continually higher was that ruffed grouse populations in southern zones were known to be less cyclic. Year after year, southern ruffed grouse populations were sometimes moderate but seldom low. Again, examine the survey.
Why would the DNR do that? Anyone who has studied ruffed grouse population dynamics in the past 30 years has heard of Gordon Gullion. He re-wrote George “Bump” Elliot’s previous findings and added some of his own.
I met Gullion at a book signing in Minneapolis and had a half hour to discuss his opinion on southern versus northern zones. Gullion said the southern zone only appeared to have more grouse He stated the area was easier to census because it had more roads parallel to ruffed grouse habitat. I guess he thought the census takers weren’t moving far enough between stops and were recounting birds. I asked for evidence that that was the case, but he said it was conjecture. Then he said that due to the nature of the hilly terrain researchers could hear drumming from further away than in northern forests. I asked if they had tested that theory and adjusted their findings accordingly and again he said no they had not.
I’m sure that by now you’ve learned a little about me through my writing. I’ve been fooled as most of us have, by people and organizations that I assumed were knowledgeable based on their training and fields of study only to realize that I was wrong. I learned that having M.D. or PhD. as a title doesn‘t mean you are good at what you do. It only means that you were smart enough to pass a test at a particular time in your life. We‘ve all met titled people who may as well have drawn their credentials from a Cracker Jack Box.. Many of them are presented as “experts” by news agencies. I have learned that if it’s important to me, study facts, not opinion. And the facts in ruffed grouse surveys did not match opinion.
This may sound like I’m minimizing Gullion or any other biologists work. I am not. I simply compare their “findings” with my observations and if they are in contradiction I question why. You will find my position on many theories and opinions on wildlife dynamics under “Where have the birds gone?” beginning on page.
I had three drake mallards, a fall turkey and one ruffed grouse as I entered a logged flat on the north side of the ridge…Pitch flushed a pair of grouse from the thick fence line. One bird hugged the outside edge of the border and I never saw him, but the other chose to escape downhill and flashed past me. I swung hard and connected then caught a glimpse of the outside bird, which necessitates a protest shot, but missed.
Pitch was head long down the hill and kept running deeper than the bird had fallen, disappearing over the rounded slope.
I stood quietly, listening for the rustling to stop, which it soon did, and then her trotting back through the dry leaves. I miss those sights of a proud dog on a crisp mourning with a warm ruffed grouse in her jaws.
So far, she had been pretty gentle on the birds and they had retained most of their plumage. I seldom took pictures back then as I would rather hunt and I was past the garage floor shots, very few hunters drove pickups back then so “tail gate shots” weren’t common. Although I recognized that many of my hunts were exceptional compared to what I knew and read, Like most young people, I believed that my experience was “normal” and history was the last five years. I believed that I could duplicate these days any time I wanted so what was the need for pictures? Yeah, right.
Only needing one more duck and one grouse, I shortened our hunt by cutting across the field toward the wood duck pond. There was some really good ruffed grouse cover around that pond and the few hundred yards back to where I left my duck shoot, birds. This not only had the makings of a spectacular day, but a short one as well.
Once back into the timber, Pitch put up a woodcock that I didn’t get a shot at but I watched it settle back down in a thick patch of birch just ahead. Then in a cluster of grapevines and downed trees, Pitch flushed a grouse that hugged the dense edge flying behind me. I was slow with the first shot, but not the second and the gray phase hen cart wheeled through brambles and dead leaves with Pitch just a few yards behind.
WOW! Three ruffed grouse, three drake mallards and a turkey and it was probably only 10:30 in the mourning! After helping Pitch with the loose feathers in her jowls and a lot of ear rubbing, Pitch rolled in the leaves as I smoothed the feathers of my limit grouse, and tucked it into my coat realizing that this was probably the best day of upland bird hunting I had had in my young life and it wasn’t over. I had a non-resident Minnesota hunting license in my pocket meaning even more ruffed grouse hunting ahead.
We worked quickly to the birches where the woodcock had landed. I was aware that If I shot at another bird here, I would likely scare the woodies. I thought I could let Pitch continue hunting the timber while I slipped over the bank and maybe we could get both.
I heard the twittering flight of woodcock behind me and preferring a mixed bag to a full one, I spun around and shot the woodcock. The woodies were splashing and whistling in flight but I just couldn’t sort out a drake, and let them go. I still had decoys out and there could be ducks in them by the time we retuned.
It was a couple hundred yards back to the decoy pond and I pushed Pitch quickly through the cover thinking a woodcock was still possible, but I should get to Minnesota where a second license allowed more freedom to hunt and shoot. Another woodcock flushed through golden leaves and two shots later, Pitch was juggling it in her mouth. I could tell she didn’t really like carrying woodcock because she would barely close her mouth on them and drop them a lot. I gave her another atta girl to keep her close when I topped the dirt bank of the duck pond.
There were no ducks present. I figured that if there had been any there my shots at woodcock had probably scared them. I was cleaning out my coat and arranging the array of my mourning hunt in the sun, when Pitch lurched up the bank and I saw a flock of woodies barreling in! These were still lead shot waterfowl days and I had confidence in the AA 8’s that were still in my gun. I shot a lot of ducks and more than a few pheasants with Trap and Skeet loads over the years and wasn’t the least hesitant shooting a 90 point drake woody to end my Iowa hunt. He wasn’t dead, but really busted up and Pitch had no trouble fishing him out of the thick grass.
What a pile of birds! There was no way I was carrying all the birds and two dozen decoys down the ridge today. I had more hunting to do. I pulled up the water decoys, and gathered those in the field. I hid a dozen in the brush below the pond bank and bagged the rest. (If you‘re the guy who found those decoys in 1982, I hope they served you well.)
I stopped at Stagemeyer’s Grocery in Eitzen, Minnesota for cold cuts and snacks for lunch and a burlap potato sack for my birds. Pitch and I picnicked on the banks of the Winnebago Creek, ate lunch and gutted the birds.
The day was heating up so I took off my camo, but I didn’t dare hunt in short sleeves. Not unlike the desert, nearly everything in the southern grouse woods had thorns. Prickly ash, raspberries and Gooseberries, Multi-floral rose and barbed wire, new and old. The single strand electric fence nestled among the various grape vines and brambles added a shocking dimension all its own.
As usual, my day went sour in Minnesota and I can’t recall how many grouse I missed. Finally, the day ended better when I shot two ruffed grouse and another woodcock late in the afternoon.
I was a poor man in finances in those days having been laid off from the foundry and working for peanuts compared to what I had made. But I felt rich in the outdoors when I could take my mind off what I had lost and was about to lose.
I hadn’t planned to hunt for the weekend, but after today, how could I leave? I had enough for a Motel room and a burger, so I stopped at the Skyline Motel just outside Dorchester, Iowa.
Gene, the owner, was a nice man and always seemed pleased when I stopped, but I think his business was as poor as mine and he was happy to see anyone stop. Even if I didn’t take a room, Gene would offer his cooler for my birds anytime I stopped and I would pick them up on my way home from Minnesota.
I gutted the afternoon birds out back and left the gunny sack outside the door because he had a few dinner guests. There was a small farm family, a few best dressed bird hunters and another couple of guys behind the door. Gene seemed particularly happy to see me that night and immediately asked where my birds were. “I left them outside,” I replied. “Well go get them. Lets see what you got!”
I returned with the gunny sack and Gene’s eyes lit up. When I handed them to him he exclaimed, ”Whoa, this is heavy! What have you got in here?” He rolled down the edges of the bag so he could see better and then reached inside and laid a couple of ruffed grouse in the middle of the floor. He was practicing showmanship and picked up the bag to illustrate that it was still heavy. When he had everyone’s attention he fumbled around some more and hefted out the three mallards and a woodcock. Then a little more flair and ruffed grouse, woodcock, and a woody. Even the guys from Des Moines showed some interest by now. “There’s still something heavy in here, What is it?” Chairs were being pushed back and one of the guys behind the door was standing as Gene pretended to struggle pulling the turkey out of the bag.
One of the guys from Des Moines turned to me and asked how many guys were hunting in my party. I said just me. “How many days have you been hunting?“ “Just today”. He then challenged, “You know you shot over your limit of ruffed grouse don’t you?” “No, I did not. I shot my three birds in Iowa this mourning and then hunted Minnesota this afternoon.”
I helped Gene re-bag the birds and right away, the guy standing in the back asked me to join his table. I hesitated but he insisted on buying me a drink, so I sat. Jim was a great guy who hunted grouse with for a couple years before I moved away. He was quite an outdoorsman enjoying cooking the tailgate game dinner at the end of the day as much as the hunt itself. He even had a home made wood box for his cooking gear and food and called it his “Chop Box”. He had read a little Robert Roark in his day as well.
A few years later after Pitch died I returned to the Upper Iowa on the last day of fall turkey season to relive the combination limit of ruffed grouse and fall turkey. I wanted to prove to myself that my previous great days weren’t fortunate accidents and also to take a picture of the birds as I didn’t take one on the “Gunny Sack Day”.
It was the Friday after Thanksgiving and the over night low had been in the teens below zero. I had a half a pumpkin pie and turkey sandwiches from Mom, so life was pretty good. I wasn’t terribly confident of shooting all the birds, but I had to have that picture. There was about five inches of three day old snow, so I was confident that I could find the birds, but not that I could get in range. I wore my winter fox hunting camo under my bird coat, hoping to pick up all my birds on Bullwinkle Ridge.
After months of hunting in dry fall leaves, the woods felt eerily quiet in the muffling snow. Myself and my hunting friends, all had what the doctor’s referred to as “Ranauds Syndrome”. A numbness to our fingers from poor blood circulation caused by the vibration of the pneumatic hammers we used to chip the cast iron castings in the John Deere Foundry. The worst part about the syndrome, was cold. Anything below freezing and our fingers would turn white and go numb. The colder the numb-er. ( My extension of the English language). The worst part of numb fingers was the thawing out process. It hurt like Hell. Sometimes, eye-watering, cuss the sons-a-bitches in Human Resources who said it wasn’t that bad, bastards, pain.
That’s enough medical talk, but some days it hurt to hunt and this was one of those days.
I climbed to the ridge top from the west choosing to skip the lower cover by the river where we usually started a hunt. I knew there were a couple of flocks of turkey on the far end of House Hollow and was in a hurry to get right to the birds. There was another 80 acres of un-pastured timber that had a few extra ruffed grouse in October, that was separated from the hollow by a power line. With luck I might be able to pull both limits out of this section.
I cut in at the power line and fence that separated the Hollow from the grouse timber and headed straight to the bottom. This hollow was a deep ravine that ran into the ag field before petering out at the top of a hill 200 yards deep. This ravine was narrow enough to cover both sides from the bottom so this was the best tactic for a lone hunter.
I had learned during dog-less years to hustle along when hunting ruffed grouse. If you walk slow or tentatively, the grouse will just walk to the side and let you pass. They’re not pheasants, so don’t expect them to “flush at your feet” as some writers state. It just doesn’t happen with ruffed grouse. I have flushed thousands of ‘ruffs and only once did one flush at my feet. They seem to have a tolerance of allowing you to pass at about 30 feet but any closer and they’ll flush. So don’t zig zag and think you have to kick every bush. Walk at a steady pace and watch for the bird flushing at the edge of range. Anything closer than that and they’ll grab your attention.
A ruffed grouse’s protection is in flying through a screen of branches and stems. When they’re caught out in the open, they do not hide but rather “put, put” until you reach for a stick to throw and then they fly.
I was surprised and disappointed to make it to the head of the ravine without a flush and only seeing one set of grouse prints. I cut up the west side to search along the thick edge for prints. Yes there were fresh grouse tracks and just as I bent under a canopy of grapevines, I heard a muffled flush ahead. I dropped to one knee but still couldn’t see the bird, so I busted my way through as quickly as I could. If you pick your way, they’ll pick you apart, flushing while you’re in a position that you can’t shoot from instead of having busted into the clear. As soon as I broke through, a second bird flushed from the head of the ravine and instead of passing me on either outside edge, he dove down the ravine.
I was relieved by the bird’s flight choice. Starting out 20 yards in front of me and passing over my left shoulder, I could get three shots at this bird before it would be out of range. Fortunately, I preserved much of the tranquility of the mourning by killing the bird with my first shot.
I picked up the dead red-phase cock, brushed its feathers clear of snow, and tucked it into my coat. Most of the reason for this hunt was to get a nice picture of the combination limit. Nice pictures of dead birds are mostly the result of not having a dog pull all their tail feathers out while extracting them from various hiding places and sometimes just for the hell of it.
With the first of hopefully three ruffed grouse neatly stowed in my game bag, I skirted the draw and headed down slope where for the next half mile I could expect a shot at a grouse or two and probably cut fresh turkey tracks. I was working the cover the opposite I normally do and would finish at the river.
I worked a gently sloping ridge with a couple of small ravines that usually held a grouse or two. Again there were no grouse tracks or turkey trails. As I neared some low cedars, a grouse flushed from below and behind me. This bird came from a tall cedar and was at 25 yards when I saw him. He stayed high and was crossing the valley to the far side. This tactic would have saved him in the early season with leaves to screen him, but in winter, I swung low and fast. He careened off branches and left an array of feathers in the snow before disappearing from view. He would have to be the middle grouse in the photo as he left some major plumage to line spring song bird nests.
I had a hard time finding the bird at the bottom of the hill. If it weren’t for the feathers I would have had a more difficult time. There was just a baseball sized hole where he dove into the snow with a couple of feathers protruding.
As I was trying to decide if I should retrace my steps to the top or skip a hill to the next good patch of cover, I noticed fresh turkey tracks on the far slope. I was carrying my Superposed and quickly extracted the AA’s and replaced them with copper 6 and 4 Federal Premiums.
My pace was brisk at first as I believed if they were near when I shot, it would be a few hundred yards before they would slow down. There must have been about a dozen turkey in the flock and they kept circling around and splitting up. I was about to just give up on tracking them and just still hunt the ridge. I was at a power line opening and just as I was certain they had already passed through, a couple of turkey flushed from well below me.
Ooopps. I sat down to give them a few minutes to settle down. I was less than a quarter mile from the river and if I pushed them across, I would have to find fresh birds.
I ate some snow which really doesn’t quench your thirst but does make you feel a little wild with that earthy taste in your mouth. I knew I was going to face a dilemma up ahead. These choppy small hills held grouse if there weren’t any turkey using them and I hadn’t seen a turkey in there on earlier hunts. But I was sure there were turkey in there now. What to load.
I decided to leave the heavy loads in and hope I wasn’t making a choice between scaring turkey, or not getting my limit grouse.
As I re-entered the woods, I saw that two turkey were heading for the choppy hills and the rest were heading east into some really open timber. I stayed with the choppy hills birds. When I topped out on the first small hill, the tracks split. One bird stayed in the hills and the other had cut across an opening to the thick river bottom. I went after the river bottom bird reasoning that if I shot it, I wouldn’t disturb any grouse that might be in the hills and maybe I could finish my combination limit without hunting Pinochle Road, my Plan B.
That river bottom was a chiropractor’s meal ticket. I tripped and stumbled over tangles seen and unseen for about ten minutes and got the hell out of there! I’d sooner walk two miles of hills then another 50 yards, pretending to be stealthy in that mess.
A few minutes later, I was back in the hills on the lone turkey track. Peering into a deep cut, I couldn’t see the bird but noticed tracks topping out on the next rise. Sliding down and clawing my way to the next top, I caught my breath before exposing myself. Just as I stood up, I saw the turkey in the bottom less than 15 yards away. I brought my gun up just as if flushed, concentrating on a head shot. I recall thinking, “That bird sure isn’t flying very fast” and just as I pulled the trigger, it landed on an oak tree branch. I missed! At fifteen yards I missed an eye level turkey that was hardly moving. Ahh, you know how that feels. And what about only one shell left? Yeah, you know that too.
I shot gain just as the turkey pushed off the limb and hit it well. Turkeys fall convincingly harder than ruffed grouse, even if they aren’t flying as fast. Down to the bottom of another slippery slope I went to claim my fall turkey. It was still flexing it’s legs and an occasional wing beat. I stood on its drum sticks to keep it from running off if it gained new life. Once motionless, I dropped the two empty Federal Premiums in my pocket. Every hunter instinctively saves important shells without ever being told.
Satisfied that the bird was dead, I grabbed a leg and immediately let go. What the Hell?! That leg was huge and it only had two toes. Two black, grotesque, toes. I reached down again and rolled the bird over. It was a mature hen. I think an overly mature mutant hen. Her neck had black splotches and there were brittle, chunks of skin and waddle missing.
Her other foot was missing a toe as well. Part of her breast was missing feathers and that skin was black as well. I think I shot the oldest, ugliest turkey in Iowa. All I could think was that she was very old and her extremities were freezing in the below zero temperatures. I have no idea how she could roost in a tree missing so many toes.
Regardless, she was my trophy turkey. I tagged her and tried carrying her in one hand while trying to flush my last grouse. The grouse flush part wasn’t hard to do, because it happened a couple of times. It was the dropping the turkey, swinging the gun and hitting the grouse part that was difficult. I unloaded my gun in case I might drop it and started the mile trek to my truck.
I hid the turkey and my gun under the highway bridge so I could pick up my pace for the last half mile to the truck. I grabbed them on my way past and in ten minutes I was parked along Pinochle Road, eating very cold turkey sandwiches, while my pie thawed on the dash. These hills, snow and cold temperatures were taking the vinegar out of me and I hoped to find my last ruffed grouse a little closer than a mile from the truck.
Look! There are fresh turkey tracks in the wooded lane, right beside my truck! And turkey too! Running, flying, even perching on tree branches, peering down at me. I could have had my pick of a half dozen turkey from my truck seat, but that’s the way hunting goes. It seems the further you walk in one area the less you would have had to walk in another. Some days the hunting Gods are hateful spiteful entities.
I crossed the road from the turkey to hunt some lesser grouse cover. I knew I would have to get some distance from these turkey before I would find any grouse. I don’t care what biologists say, I had hunted ruffed grouse in the tri-state corner for 25 years, and I know where grouse can and can not be found. And ruffed grouse will not share a cover with turkey.
This was a lucky day. As I said, this wasn’t a good ruffed grouse woods and it was a good thing that I traded my Superposed for my old pump Weatherby. I needed the short cylinder bore barrel and three shots to get my last grouse. A single flushed from a tangle at the far corner of the cover. The only real thick stuff in the whole wood. I was twisted around in the tangle and missed with my first shot. I stepped one leg over a downed log, leaned, and shot under some branches and missed again. Just then another grouse flushed! That bird was swinging in the opposite direction. Sensibly, I just sat down on the log with a leg over each side and shot the bird. I’ve made a lot of shots over the years from unorthodox positions, but this was the first one from the seat of my pants.
But I do believe there are some good old boy Northwoods grouse hunters who could teach me a thing or two about shooting from the seat of my pants. I’m sure that many of them have it down to an art form.
I bagged three ruffed grouse and a fall turkey for the second time, before noon, but I will say it’s much easier earlier in the year and without snow. This time I even had a picture.