Well, Ohio’s 2024 South Zone turkey season begins April 20 and will drag along until May 19 while the Northeast Zone — a five county area that’s in the extreme corner of the state that apparently identifies as part of Wisconsin — will open and close slightly later, beginning April 27 and then crawling its way to May 26.
It’s a time of great expectation and enthusiasm among the camo crowd, but I was slow to become any kind of a participant.
I was first struck with the idea that hunting turkeys would be an enjoyable pastime when a newly introduced fellow quietly sat down with our small group in poorly lit bar. He pushed photos of himself posing with a longbeard and a bottle of celebratory “Wild Turkey” bourbon.
The story he told was fascinating as it painted a vivid picture of his pre-hunt scouting trips. The morning opener had brought along a lone gobble from a distant hillside, a fast-paced move to get closer and then a slower creep to gain a hidden position.
He explained how he used a mouth held diaphragm call to get the bird’s attention and then switched to a box call for some clucks and to a slate for his perfected purrs and cuts. He soon found himself surrounded by strutting gobblers and jakes as he allowed his calls to go silent.
He slowly raised the gun into position and waited and waited and … BANG! … turkey dinner. My college-aged eyes brightened as the hour-long story came to its close while I looked again at the dead turkey’s fanned tale and the big smile that highlighted the hunter’s face.
I never saw the guy again. I don’t know if he worked for Mossy Oak, Winchester, the license sales portion of the Division of Wildlife or some turkey call entrepreneur, but I now know he had the scruples of a drug pusher.
My friends staggered to their cars with glazed eyes murmuring “Cabela’s” and “Bass Pro” as they drove away to find the nearest ATM. I was one of the lucky ones. I didn’t have much spendable cash, so my addiction was delayed.
Within a few years, I was on the job as a game protector, and many of those old friends followed similar career choices. We would often cross paths, and I was both concerned yet interested that many had fallen prey to those rabid touters of turkey tradition.
They each seemed to parrot exactly the same story that I’d heard all those years before with only slightly noticeable adjustments. They all ended with “BANG! … turkey dinner” though some added a hat full of morel mushrooms to the recipes which had seemed to become an addendum to the growing number of turkey shooting stories.
While it’s true that it’s immoral and illegal to bait wild turkeys, the same doesn’t hold true for baiting turkey hunters. Seeing my foot-dragging response, a “friend” loaded me into a truck for a trip to Dundee, Michigan, to explore Cabela’s ground blinds, camo clothing, plethora of turkey calls, decoys, books, etc., etc., etc.
Then, the Division of Wildlife took the low road and stocked wild turkeys in northwest Ohio, literally in my backyard. To put it in fishing lingo, “Bobber down, hook set.” I became part of the spring camo crowd.
Now, I have two different camouflage patterns I use a week or two out of the year and a corked bottle of Wild Turkey waiting for my first photo-op. Even so, I have declared some self-imposed caveats. I want to harvest my first bird on my own property, preferably with a flintlock. I also want to do it alone, making my own witness-less mistakes. I’ve had friends ask me to come along with them, but I’ve resisted. For me, it’s not just about the bird but also about the process.
So far, I just haven’t been a very good turkey hunter. In fact, my decoy and my calling have attracted one curious fox, a deer that bumped into my leg, a pair of sneaking coyotes, a number of concerned squirrels and our barn cat. There was one turkey that did walk in from behind and gobbled from about 10 feet away. I never heard it coming, and it took me a while to get out of the tree I jumped into. There was another that stopped most of a football field away and spent over an hour strutting and putting. I’m not sure, but I think it was deliberately mooning me.
So, if you see me after the season expires, don’t bother asking me if I got my turkey. If I do, trust me, I’ll find you. Instead, just torture me with your own photos and stories. Just don’t forget to bring along that bottle of famed bourbon and at least allow me to celebrate your bird.
You can purchase your hunting license and turkey permit as well as subscribing to Wild Ohio Magazine at wildohio.gov on the HuntFish OH mobile app or at participating agents statewide.
“You don’t hunt turkeys because you want to; you hunt turkeys because you have to.”
– Tom Kelly
