Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/742011
S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S • 33 the roost, then steal upon the unsuspecting game and shoot as many as possible before the turkeys realize what is going on and leave the unhealthy neighborhood. A second method is calling, or "yelping." Using a bone from a turkey's wing as a caller, the sportsman sucks air through the bone to imitate the "yelp" of a gobbler. An ordinary clay pipe also makes an excellent caller. This method may be followed with deadly effect either after a flock has been scattered or, as done in the South, while the gobblers are strutting, in which case a good imitation of the cry of a lovelorn hen will lure the male to his destruction. Still another method, the most dashing and exciting sport of all, is coursing the birds with greyhounds. This, of course, demands an open country, and is, I believe, only attempted on the plains of the far South and Southwest. For this, the sportsman must be a good horseman and be well mounted as the going is fast and free and the ground covered frequently dangerous. When turkeys are found feeding in the open, the dogs are slipped, and when the birds take wing, horse and hounds follow the selected victim as fast as they can lay foot to the ground. The turkey flies straight, and though its first flight may be a half- mile or more, it has not time to recover from the unusual exertion, ere the fleet dogs again compel it to take wing. It may rise two or three times, but its strength is soon spent, and unless it can reach heavy cover, the dogs will pull it down. The horseman, meanwhile, follows the chase as best he can. Yet another method, and a thoroughly sportsmanlike one, is tracking, or still-hunting. The best time for this is immediately after a light fall of snow, when all sign is fresh and the contest simply becomes a fair test of hunter's craft against cunning and endurance. The still-hunter will surely earn his bird, no matter whether he carries a rifle and kills his game at long range, or with a shotgun and kills it flying after he has fairly tramped it to a standstill, forced it from sheer weariness to squat and hide, and then flushed it from cover by his close approach. Tracking turkeys in the kind of ground they usually favor is emphatically hard work, and the tracker will be led, perhaps, for mile after mile through just the sort of cover that tempts one to halt and "talk the bark off a tree" now and then. I have many times followed turkeys—sometimes on the tracks, sometimes by guesswork—for an entire day and never once had a chance at a bird. O ne fall, that now has many leaves upon its grave, I decided to take a run on the Canada Southern into Essex Woods and try for a good gobbler, though a plump hen would doubtless have also received attention. It had rained hard for several days, then the cold came, and with it a slight fall of snow, though hardly sufficient for good tracking. It was an extremely sharp, clear, bracing morning when I left a comfortable farmhouse some miles west of Essex Centre, and with Winchester on shoulder started for the great silent stretch of woods, which extended for miles in every direction. I knew that turkey were in these woods and was fully resolved to have one before night, but no sooner was the timber fairly entered than the unpleasant fact became painfully apparent that it wasn't a good day for hunting turkey. Every hollow between the thick-standing oaks, maples, and elms had been filled to o'er-flowing by the rains, and now every pool was covered with an inch-thick coat of ice—just thick enough not to bear 180 pounds. Every twig and frozen leaf under foot, moreover, was crushed like glass, and under such conditions I was about as likely to get within shot of a turkey as I was to tree a Bengal tiger up one of the big elms. There was nothing for it but to acknowledge a balk, and I retreated to the railroad, the track being about the only place where dry walking was possible. After infinite difficulty, aided by a couple of rails from the snake fence, I managed to safely cross the deep ditch between the woods and the track, and so reached safe footing. It was an exasperating situation. Straight as a rule, east and west, stretched the narrow bed with its two shining rails. On either side HOw I LOST my THANkSGIvING TuRkey