There's more to turkey hunting than getting a bird

Ken White with one of the more than 20,000 turkeys taken during the first week of the Missouri spring turkey season.

The spring turkey season -- which runs from April 15 through May 5 -- shows that turkey hunting in Missouri has come a long way.

Spring turkey hunters took 21,437 bearded birds in Missouri during the first week of this season. Leading counties were: Franklin with 560, followed by Texas with 444 and Sainte Genevieve 413.

Other high counties included Green with 339, Douglas with 304, St. Clair 423 and Callaway 382. Vernon County had 276 bearded birds checked.

Last week, I tagged a big tom, which was something I never thought would happen when hunting turkeys in Missouri first started. This spring season was as different as day and night compared to that first hunt.

It was early Sunday morning, the last day of the first week of the spring season. Starting off my back porch, I heard a gobble sound off less than 100 yards away. The big tom was close, and he flushed from his roost.

Later, I started down the same path when a crow sounded off, followed by a gobble. Not taking the time to set up a decoy, I rushed to the nearest big tree and made a soft hen call.

Minutes later, the big tom was walking toward me, some 30 yards away. He started strutting and was all fanned out.

As he took a few more steps closer, a shot ended the hunt and the 21-pound tom is now in the freezer, waiting to be the main course in a turkey dinner.

After getting the big tom, It was time to head for the lake where fishermen were catching crappie and walleye. While there, I met George Taylor, Joplin.

When we started talking about finding morel mushrooms, he showed me a photo of a lot of morels he found while fishing on Table Rock Lake.

He said, "I was fishing near Kimberling City when I was in the back end of a cove and spotted what looked like morels up the bank. On closer inspection, I found that they were indeed real morels.

"I pulled the boat to shore and started gathering the mushrooms in my minnow bucket. I nearly filled the bucket to the top and forgot about the fishing. Morel hunting is addictive, just like turkey hunting."

When we first heard there would be a turkey season in Missouri back in 1960, Paul Hoffman, Independence, and I decided it would be a challenge that we both accepted.

That first spring season opened in just 14 Ozark counties for three days. Fewer than 1,000 hunters took advantage of this new hunting and even fewer knew much about it, including both of us.

We soon found out that there are plenty of rewards to the turkey season, other than bagging a bird.

It worked out great that the Missouri Department of Conservation set the hours for hunting. It gave us all afternoon to fish for crappie or look for morels.

While walking in the woods, found a bunch of morel mushrooms that we gathered and headed back to camp to get a fire started. Those KC Strip steaks and morel mushrooms made the trip worthwhile.

The combination of turkey hunting, fishing for spawning crappie, bass, walleye and white bass makes a trip in April an unforgettable one.

Well before sunrise, we were in the turkey woods waiting for a big gobbler to sound off and walk right to us. We soon found out it doesn't work that way.

Wild turkeys -- with a brain the size of a pea -- can easily outsmart inexperienced hunters. It took several years before the first tom made the mistake of coming too close to my stand, but after bagging that first tom in Crawford County, success has come my way.

When the fall season started back in 1978, it was a different ballgame. The toms don't gobble and both hens and toms are legal.

There are fewer hunters in the fall because adult toms are hard to come by. Once you are in the turkey woods and hear a gobble from a big tom turkey, you can understand why there are many more hunters in the spring than in the fall. The possibility of finding morels and catching fish are reasons enough to bring out spring turkey hunters.

Back in the early days of the turkey hunting, the Ozarks and southern Missouri held the best opportunity, but things changed fast. Having grown up in Carroll County, a wild turkey was something you only saw in photos, along with the Pilgrims at Thanksgiving.

I never thought there would be a day when hunting them in Carroll County would be possible. Although it has been years in the making, I can still remember the circumstances surrounding each bird, starting with my first.

That first one came from a hunt in Crawford County, near Steelville. Hunting along with Mac Johnson, then-editor of the Missouri Conservationist magazine, I was using a borrowed 12 gauge when a big gobbler sounded off behind me, then to my left and finally, he appeared in front of me, about 40 yards away.

Slowly taking aim, I fired and my first turkey was on the ground. It weighed a little more than 24 pounds and I was still shaking while taking the bird to the checking station, a milestone I thought would never happen when hunting this majestic bird.

Hunting in Cedar County, near home, was another hunt to remember. This old tom was following six hens across an open field, so I never thought I had a chance to pull him away from his harem.

However, an excited hen call got his attention and here he came in full strut. At about 30 yards, he stopped and before he could figure what was wrong with this picture, he was history.

The next tom was my first and only one taken with my bow. This 23-pound bird was walking along with two other big toms and a lucky shot dropped the turkey in his tracks.

I decided that I could never get a better shot with my bow, so I picked up the 20 gauge again for the rest of my hunts. I could always say, "I got every turkey I shot at with my bow."

There have been many great hunts over the years. In fact, there has never been a bad hunt.

Sometimes failing to even see a bird, but finding the morels and catching spawning crappie made the trip worthwhile.

Yes, as Taylor said, turkey hunting is addictive. Every hunt is a challenge.

You never know what that big bird will do and usually, it's what you don't expect. Turkey hunting in Missouri has come a long way since 1960 and it has all been good, whether you get a bird or not.

There are many things to enjoy while in the turkey woods. Nature is coming alive in the spring and besides the morels, there are wild flowers in bloom, birds singing, redbud and dogwood trees showing lots of color and plenty of deer and other critters moving around to observe.

Another big thing I learned while turkey hunting is patience. It's one of the most important elements for success.

Since that first hunt in Douglas County, a record of where the birds are taken, as well as how much they weighed was kept. Before the start of the 2013 season, the total of the weights found I had brought home more than a ton of turkeys -- something that would never have been thought of when the first modern season opened back in 1960.