Illustration Ryan Kirby

Procedural changes

by Tom Kelly

For the first three quarters of my hunting career, immediately after I had just pulled the trigger on a turkey, I made an honest effort to beat the charge of shot out to where the bird was flopping. I did this because I knew turkeys sometimes got up and got away after the first shot, and the risk of such an event was increased if the hunter performed a leisurely amble out to the recently downed bird.

Here lately, I have come to realize that I am now the possessor of a pair of octogenarian knees. These, while still serviceable for ordinary walking, have developed a serious defect. They are very poor at leaping up on an instant's notice and achieving sprint speed after the first two steps.

I have therefore modified my procedure.

Now, I pull the trigger, come back into battery after recoil, and hold myself in readiness for the delivery of a second shot. The rationale being that if the turkey was in range at the first shot, and makes any attempt to run off after it, he will still be in range for a quick second shot if one is found to be necessary. Quick second shots are far more effective when delivered from a comfortably seated position. They beat hell out of those shots delivered from the middle of a frantic scramble by a hunter trying to stand up.

Like every other person of breeding and culture, I make an honest effort to shoot turkeys in the head and neck because it adds a tinge of professional propriety to the situation. It is much like that of a halfback simply flipping the ball to an official after he has crossed the goal line rather than doing an imitation of a gyrating fool seemingly in the throes of a seizure that is so commonly seen now days.

I took up the practice of head shots because of a comment from my wife's paternal grandmother just after we got married. The grandmother, one of those little old ladies who was 85 pounds of solid charm, apologized to me for the state of the turkey she was serving. She made the comment that she was ashamed of the turkey because it had not been head shot. She said it had been given to her by a nephew, who didn't know any better, and that never before in her life had she voluntarily served a turkey that had not been shot in the head. It pained her to think that her granddaughter's new husband might suffer dental problems that were caused by one of her meals.

At the time, I had been hunting turkeys for some 15 years, four of which had been spent in the military, which was four years of zeros, and my total bag of turkeys would have fit comfortably on the average kitchen table. Most of these had been shot in the all over, and some of them had even been shot in the opposite end from the head.

My great, great, great grandfather commanded a battalion of infantry for Andrew Jackson at the battle of New Orleans in 1815 and later in life was elected Lt. Governor of Louisiana. I was a commissioned officer in the United States Army and none of my family was then, or ever had been, either destitute or serving a jail sentence. I had therefore considered my social background, while far distant from that of royalty, to be reasonably adequate in most cases. Except that now I was being faced with rules of conduct I had never dreamed existed, let alone being expected to comply with.

I cannot remember ever having felt quite so inadequate.

Every once in a while, even today after all these years, there are occasional shot marks to be found in turkeys I bring home that are not strictly limited to the head and neck. But I do try, it was never done on purpose, and I can only comfort myself with the line from author Ernest Gann that says, "There is in every man a lesser man, and his presence smells in the sun."

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