I had located a wise old gobbler on a recent hunt near Port Gibson, but fate had other plans. After 4 hours of engaging in sweet love talk, courtship and making moves like a game of chess, I finally had four gobblers appear on a knoll 35 yards away. Just as I was about to pull the trigger, a jake walked in front of them and then all 4 gobblers bunched up. Before I could get a clear shot at one, they dropped below the ridge and were gone.
I decided to get down there before dawn the next morning so that I could be the first hen to the dance.
Arriving before the break of dawn, I got positioned within hearing distance of the gobbler’s roosting area. Shortly after the birds greeted the new day’s dawning, an owl cut up and signaled his presence. The old tom belted out a lusty double gobble and the game was on. He was positioned across the hollow in almost the same place he’d roosted the morning before.
I let the gobbler wake up slowly until he had gobbled at most everything that made a sound before I alerted him to my presence.
Yelp, yelp, yelp, came the soft tree yelp as I tried my best to fool the wise old bird.
“Gobble, obble, obble” screamed the thunderbird in a lusty response to my calls. I just sat tight and played my cards close to my vest. I was playing hard to get and waited until he flew down and hit terra firma on my side of the creek in search of his hen.
Loud fighting sounds
This time I yelped, clucked and purred in a seductive tone and he instantly came unglued and gobbled almost continuously for the next 15 minutes.
Suddenly the tone changed, and it was obvious that he was in a fight of dominance, most likely to see who was going to court the new hen that just showed up. The wings flapping and fighting purrs was a good indicator of a fight going on. It mattered not to me whether one or multiple gobblers came up, I was only looking for one.
Then I spotted a large bird flying in my direction over the tops of the oak trees. As the turkey sailed overhead within gun range, I let her fly by untouched. I was slightly perturbed thinking that a poacher may have come into my area and scared them off.
Thirty-minutes later I’d only heard silence and wondered what had happened. I moved up onto a knoll about 80 yards towards the birds and set up and called another 30 minutes but heard nary a peep. I figured that I’d move up to the area where the gobbler was gobbling, strutting and responding to me and make one last attempt as they had obviously moved up the hollow.
As I moved into position, I heard one last raucous commotion that had me even more concerned. I walked up to the last ridge and was going to set up and call, thinking that the birds might be able to hear me better if they’d moved further up the hollow.
Carnage
Just as I rounded a slight tree on a knoll, I came face to face with the gobbler a mere 5 yards away. To my surprise, he lay there dead! Astonishingly something had torn his beard off as it lay about 4 feet from the gobbler. As I rolled him over to check it out, I found teeth and claw marks on his back as a predator had torn feathers off of his back.
Amazingly, he felt warm as I spread his wings to see the carnage. I rolled him over and felt his breast and it was warm and pliable. Everything was intact except his beard and his head. The predator had eaten his head off and ripped his beard off! Evidently the gobbler was attacked and killed by a predator, likely a bobcat, and he had been scared off when I arrived at the scene of the carnage.
Just a few feet away at the edge of a drainage ditch was the scene of the attack with feathers scattered for 30 feet. The gobbler fought valiantly but in the end the predator won.
We know that many hunters have been attacked by bobcats and have seen coyote attacks on turkey decoys as well, so it’s no wonder they actually kill a few of the gobblers also.
One of my longtime friends and fellow turkey hunters had an encounter a few years ago that corroborates some of those predator attack stories we’ve all heard.
Bobcat attacks hunter
Dr. George Arrington of Meridian had hunted turkeys his whole life, but a turkey hunt he experienced in Texas was unlike any other.
“The weather was really terrible with high winds and there was very little cover, so I got up in a bush and tried to hide while I was calling,” he said. “As the wind picked up, I started calling more frequently and louder. It was really hot, and I’d about had it when I decided to take a break.”
Arrington reached up and grabbed his hat and face mask and took it off together in one quick motion.
Wham!
“As soon as I took that hat and mask off something hit me on my back, head and neck area and knocked me off of my turkey chair,” Arrington said. “I was stunned to see that a large bobcat attacked me, and he must’ve been stunned or knocked out for a minute as he lay there motionless. He came too and took off. I got my wits about me and shot three times to scare him and also alert my hunting partner.
“He bit me and clawed my head and neck area and tore the back of my ear and scalp. No doubt he thought I was a turkey and must’ve been stalking me by hearing my calling and when I took my cap off, he pounced on me and attacked!
“My partner wanted me to get a shot and he said that thing must’ve been crazy. I told him the cat just thought I was a turkey.”
If you don’t believe it can happen, then think again, Dr. George Arrington is one Master Turkey Hunter who got attacked too!
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