Lucky Thirteen

Lucky Thirteen

Sporting Classics Daily | May 2, 2018

by Jack Hutson  

To some, walking under ladders, opening umbrellas indoors and black cats are all harbingers of bad luck. Being a skeptic to the point of total disbelief, I had no concerns for the day’s possibilities – and why would I? I was enjoying time with my eldest grandson, Trent, we left on time – something of a miracle in itself – and found my favorite coffee stand actually open at 4:30 in the A.M.!

Arriving at the glint of dawn, we were greeted by hooting owls and gobbling turkeys while we readied ourselves. Our initial stalk didn’t strike me as odd when gobbling toms would take us one direction just to turn us in the other. The obnoxiously loud and persistent hen that wouldn’t leave that first set-up was just another day in the turkey woods. Even blowing a stalk on a group of turkeys was to be expected. Nothing about this experience said, “Bad Luck”, to me.

No, I didn’t really recognize how strange our day had become until the woods went silent of all turkey chatter. It was a text-book bright and early morning with all the earmarks of a day for tom gobbling but, all was eerily quiet! Then, our next set-up had another lonely hen literally run across an old clear cut just to join up with our decoy! I have gone years without attracting an odd-ball lone hen! Today, I had two over-enthusiastic hens in as many attempts!

Pacing in nervous circles, the hen clucked and screeched at the foam turkey mannequin we, in jest, refer to as “Henrietta”. I encouraged the hectic hen with chatter of my own making; all the while hearing advancing toms in the distance. Either bored, feeling shunned, or not in want for male companionship, the hen moved on as the tom’s gobbling calls increased in amount and amplitude!

Halting only long enough to fan and gobble, a pair of toms came trotting down a distant hillside – over two hundred yards away and closing! Then, silently, another tom came in from our right in its attempt to cut-off the pair of potential suitors! Well within 15 yards, like a deck of playing cards in the hand of a skilled gambler, its tail fanned in brilliant display! My eyes glanced toward 14-year old Trent, frozen in a wide-eyed stare with the gun across his lap! “Bring the gun up and shoot!” I hissed through grinning teeth!

Sensing that something about this set-up stunk like last Thanksgiving’s cranberries, the tom began to cluck and move away! Still no shot from Trent, he whispered back, “It won’t shoot”! Writing this tom off as a loss, and the others still coming, I had Trent slam a fresh round into the old Mossberg pump-action with authority!

Just in time! The other toms had briefly disappeared behind a knoll and were about to reemerge beyond the patiently waiting Henrietta. Both toms competed heartily for the affection of the cold-shouldering hen with a dull blank gaze! Spitting and drumming they strutted with wings bowed like body builders on a beach. Trent was getting the show of his young life!

It was an awesome display, to be sure, but the clock was ticking – why didn’t Trent shoot?! Was the decoy in the way?! Were the toms too close together?! Was the gun jammed, again?! Oh, my gosh – “Why doesn’t he shoot”?!!

In almost anticlimactic fashion, the booming voice of the 12-gauge delivered its 1 7/8 ounce payload of #5 shot! Without a twitch, the lead tom dropped, beak-first, into the whisk of snow! Elation and relief are the odd-couple of emotions that one feels when mentoring in the unpredictable outdoors. Thankful, indeed, that our luck held out this day; Friday, the 13th day of April.