About a half hour of driving later, Tom turned onto the dirt county road that led us into the thick mountainous woods. It was still pitch dark outside, and Tom still insisted that when we got out, we had to walk with nothing but a very dim flashlight, and keep our mouths shut. He also told us to walk very carefully; roll our feet on our heels and walk with one heel against the other, so we wouldn't make any noises and could feel for twigs that might snap under our weight.
In other words, we'd act as though we were trying to raid the fridge at 3 AM in a room full of spilled potato chips on rickety hardwood floors, while trying to not wake up the family guard Rottweiler sleeping under the kitchen table. We'd communicate telepathically, because there were no stars or moon that morning, we couldn't talk, we couldn't see, and we couldn't even let our clothes rub against ourselves. Basically, we had to complete an impossible task, even though people have been successfully doing this long before people actually looked like people.
I was amazed by just how silent it was out there. It wasn't a silence that most people are use to. It wasn't the kind of silence that makes your ears ring. It was the kind of silence that cleared my mind and made it possible for me to hear the worms below our feet. When Tom turned the lights off in his truck, it was almost as if I had fallen asleep. Only our breathing and my conscious thoughts let me know that I was not sleeping, and my eyes were still wide open.
Tom, in the tiniest whisper he could manage, mumbled, "Let's go", and I heard only some movement as he walked away. I followed, and I stumbled and fell multiple times, but within a few minutes, my eyes had actually adjusted. The darkness was equivalent to a pitch dark basement, yet I could see everything around me. It was very strange, but I was happy that I could avoid the holes and roots in the path that kept catching my feet.
Tom had a blind high up on a mountain, overlooking a valley and towards another, much larger mountain. He had seen the turkeys roost in the trees on the other side of the valley from the blind for weeks, and made sure to set up the blind and decoys where he assumed those birds would fly in that morning. The blind is really just a square camo tent, and decoys are just fake plastic turkeys designed to distract the real turkeys from the hunters in the blind.
To get to the blind, we had to follow a very steep and narrow path that seemed to be frequented by elk. There were elk hoof prints in the soft soil, as well as signs on the trees that the animals were rubbing against them. The path wound around the mountainside and deep into the wilderness for a bit, before finally spitting us out at the blind near the crest of the mountain.
One by one, we entered the blind, doing our best to not rustle the plastic material too much. I sat in a camo folding lawn chair to the left, my guide to the right, and my grandpa just behind us. Tom helped me set up the shotgun on the tripod, which he, by law, had to carry for me, and then it was just the waiting game. Tom briefly checked his watch, which read 5:30 AM. The sun wouldn't start to come up until about 6:30, which meant it would be awhile before the turkeys woke up.
In the meantime, I sat in silence with my thoughts, enjoying the cool mountain air and the absolute silence. I wasn't bored at all. It was much different than sitting in a boring waiting room with nothing to do. I didn't even consider messing with my phone, which I had secured in one of my pockets along with a basic flip knife, my wallet, and my hunting tag. I was perfectly content with sitting there with the butt of the shotgun resting firmly against my right shoulder, and just staring out the blind into the pitch dark abyss, thinking about all of the adventures the day had to offer.
I don't know how much time passed, but I was nearly startled by the sound of some loud crackling just behind me, that sounded awfully like firecrackers. Tom and I looked at each other, and then we glanced behind us to see my grandpa attempting to unwrap a mint. My grandpa stopped midway as Tom and I stared at him, and stared back at us like a deer in the headlights.
In a low whisper, Tom joked, "I think there's a squirrel in here."
I smiled and nodded in agreement.
We all stifled our laughter, and my grandpa finished unwrapping his candy. I looked back outside while the very first hints of the sunrise began to show. The sky was still mostly black, but a little bit of navy blue was beginning to tint the sky just behind the spruce and pine trees on the right side of the mountain ahead of us. Pretty soon, the whole sky was this deep, navy blue, except for the sky just below the mountain, which was a very pale yellow. Slowly but surely, the sun began to rise, and with it, the woods came alive.
Several species of songbird began to sing, including robins, sparrows, woodpeckers, and larks. And just below all of that, we heard our first longbeard gobbler hammering in the trees. Tom quickly took out his box turkey call, which worked by moving the striking piece against the wood to imitate several turkey hen calls. The tom turkey we heard just seconds ago fell silent as my guide imitated the call of a hen who was looking for a mate. Turkey hen calls are a unique sound, like the mixture between a squeaky door and nails on a chalkboard, only much more pleasant. Kind of like how salt is perfectly safe and good to eat, but the ingredients that make up salt probably taste terrible and can easily kill you. The call of a turkey hen is music to my ears, just like the calls of the songbirds singing around us. In fact, I think it's the prettiest call a wild bird can make.
Tom and I waited for a few minutes. It was silent again. Outside, I could see the other mountainside through the brush around us. The sky was a pale white, and the wind had picked up to a gentle breeze. Tom used the box call again and again. But, there were no signs of the turkeys anywhere. The birds fell silent when they hit the ground to avoid attracting predators. At 7:30 AM, Tom gave me a choice; we could stay in the blind and just wait for the turkeys to come to us, though that may not happen, or we could get out there and start looking for the birds ourselves. The Mountain Dew was finally kicking in, and I wanted to get outside and stretch my legs. So I decided that we should start walking.
But first, we had to wait for my grandpa to relieve himself. My grandpa had drank a huge cup of coffee on the way to the hunting grounds, and nature was calling. Those two minutes of waiting felt impossibly long, compared to the two hours we had just spent sitting in the blind doing literally nothing. Ahead, I saw the trail that led us to the blind, and I wanted to follow it, but I had to restrain myself and wait for everyone else to get ready. So, I just paced around in circles near the blind until everyone was ready to go.
Finally, my grandpa returned from the wilderness behind me, and Tom led us down that path. It T-ed off not far from the blind, and instead of going left back towards the truck, Tom led us right to follow the path to the other side of the mountain. Along the way, we came across plenty of animal scat, fresh tracks, fur, and even a turkey feather. Tom spotted the turkey feather and gave it to me, declaring in a low whisper, "That's a good sign."
However, what I didn't consider good signs were the bear scat and tracks we came across quite often. They were pretty fresh too; no more than a few days old at most. I figured that the predators would leave us alone as long as we were together. Tom was a pretty tall and muscular guy. He was older, in his 60's, but he seemed like the kind of guy who could successfully fight off a grizzly with one arm tied behind his back, so I figured we were safe from bear attacks as long as he was around.
We eventually came to the other side of the mountain, overlooking a ridge. We could see the county road winding around several more mountains, as well as a small log cabin and white wooden stable hidden in a flat valley. Tom patted my left shoulder and pointed out a mountain directly across the road from us. There, bounding uphill through the barren grey shrubs and red cedar clusters, was a decent sized herd of elk. It was nearly impossible to tell the cows from the bulls that time of year, since the bulls didn't have more than velvet nubs for antlers, which were invisible to the naked eye three quarters of a mile away. But it was still a neat sight. We stared and watched until the last elk clambered to the crest of the mountain, paused for a moment to briefly glance over its shoulder towards us, then trotted down the other side.
The elk were especially skittish due to the high predator activity, which further strengthened my anxious thoughts about getting mauled by a hangry black bear. It was springtime after all. Those bears were awake and they were hungry! I don't fear anything in the wilderness except for bears, as you can probably tell. I'm ok with moose, cougars (just as long as they're not juvenile), bull elk, tom turkeys, snakes, tarantulas (yes, there are tarantulas in parts of Colorado), and birds of prey, but I've heard too many hunting stories about pissed off bears to feel comfortable with them. It actually hits close to home. My grandpa's cousin almost got mauled by a black bear while deer hunting in the Rockies. He shot the bear just as it was rising on its hind legs to tackle him, and the bear fell over and died at his feet. The game wardens allowed my grandpa's cousin to take home the bear, where he butchered and cooked the meat, and tanned the bear's hide to use as a rug.
It turns out most black bears are delicious, as most hunters will tell you. In fact, any predator meat is delicious and highly sought after, just as long as the predator didn't spend most of its time eating rotting carcasses. Bears who eat lots of fish tend to smell and taste like fish. Bears who eat mostly berries have purple fat and a sweet taste to their gamy meat. Bears who eat mostly moose and elk tend to taste like moose and elk. Learning about that really made me think about what I've been putting into my own body. You literally are what you eat.
My guide tapped my right shoulder to get my attention again, and motioned me to follow him down the path. About halfway down the mountain, Tom looked back and said, "We can either continue to hunt on foot, or we can go get the ranger (4x4 side-by-side) and use that to go from place to place instead." I opted to go fetch the ranger, so Tom led us back the way we came to his pickup truck, which he left parked on the county road. Just as we got into his pickup truck, Tom noticed a decent rafter of hens being led around by a tom. The tom was puffed up and strutting around, hoping to attract a hen in heat, but none of the hens seemed very interested. There was a small path going up the mountainside, and we watched them as they slowly ascended the path.
"They're headed up the mountain." Tom quietly pointed out, "Let's get the ranger and go up the other side. Hopefully we can meet them in the middle."
Tom lived in a cabin high up on a barren mountain, overlooking the property in nearly every direction. A quarter-mile down the mountain from his cabin was a tractor shed where he kept his ranger, as well as a tractor, and a few of his metal art projects. Tom was in the middle of working on a life-size metal elk silhouette to use as a shooting target, which stood proudly in the center of the shop surrounded by scraps of metal and heavy-duty tools.
Tom loaded the 20 gauge into a plastic gun case bolted to the trunk of the ranger, and then the three of us packed inside. The ranger wasn't all too impressive. It wasn't like the $50,000 side-by-sides you see racing around in off-road competitions. It was black and forest green, had a backseat and a front seat, basic lap seat belts, and a roll cage but no windows or doors. Tom didn't drive too fast because he didn't want to freeze me to death or make a wrong move, but he did drive between 30 and 40 miles per hour down the county roads, and up to 20 on the rougher paths within the mountains. He just told me to wear my hat backwards so we didn't have to worry about it blowing away, and to bury my face in my bandanna if it got too cold and/or dusty for me.
I snacked on some beef jerky as Tom drove. We rounded a bend on the county road and turned into the driveway of the little cabin and stable. Though, instead of turning left over a cattle guard and onto the cabin's property, Tom turned right, and onto a narrow, unkempt path that wound around the side of another mountain. There, he gave it hell.
My grandpa later admitted that he was holding on for dear life, clutching to the roll cage bars on either side of him in the backseat. Meanwhile, I sat comfortably in the front passenger seat, grazing on beef jerky and watching as the valley just below us grew more and more distant. As unnerving as it would be to most people, I was pretty confident that Tom knew what he was doing, and even if he made a wrong move, at least we were in a titanium roll cage. Tom ran over 8 foot tall aspen saplings as if they were nothing but grass, and a dusky grouse almost committed suicide on the grill of our ranger, but darted away just in time.
Eventually, the trail leveled out, and Tom parked. There was a large grove of aspens just to the left, in a little bowl surrounded by the mountain. They were barren, but the ground around them was still blanketed in rotting aspen leaves from the season before. We dashed into the aspens, and Tom quietly called for the turkeys while I sat among the trees with the shotgun resting on the tripod and my shoulder, patiently waiting and hoping for the turkeys to come up the trail and meet us. Unfortunately, they didn't. Even when Tom and I made our way to the trail where it sloped down the other side to call, nothing responded. Not even a yelp.
I felt a little discouraged, and followed Tom back to the ranger. As usual, Tom drove us down the mountain and towards the main county road. We drove back to where we originally saw the turkeys, and Tom took out his box call and called a few times. Seconds later, we heard a gobble. I thought it was coming from the mountains to the left, but Tom and my grandpa thought it was coming from the mountains to the right. The wind distorted the sound, so it could've come from anywhere. Tom and my grandpa led me to the mountains on the right, where we took shelter under a pine tree and sat waiting and straining our ears.
My guide used his box call again, and we got a distant reply. My hearing was correct. The turkey was hiding in the mountains to the left. So, very quickly, we got up and moved to the other side of the county road, across the boggy floodplain, and up the trail we had previously seen the rafter of turkeys. The floodplain was really starting to smell, which I didn't really care to know why. It smelled like death mixed in with pine needles and mildew.
There was an abandoned cabin halfway up the mountainside. After Tom called to the turkeys a few more times, and determined that the turkeys were somewhere around that cabin, slowly and carefully, we crept up an overgrown path once used by the cabin owners. Tom got us right up to the turkeys, and helped me to set up the tripod as quickly as possible just off the path. We had to be extremely careful, because there were twigs and dead leaves just waiting to be crunched, ruining my chance of getting that tom turkey. My grandpa crouched down just behind us, and we all stayed painfully still as Tom called for the turkeys. The turkeys called back, and they sounded closer each time.
After awhile, the calls stopped. But the turkeys were very close. A few minutes in, I could hear rustling in the brush just to my right, that sounded like it belonged to a turkey or two. I didn't dare to move though. I stayed perfectly still, and hoped that the turkey would strut right in front of my sights. Apparently, that tom turkey we had seen earlier scored a mate, which is why he fell silent. He was really having a good time. When he was finished, he came closer to us, and was less than 4 feet away from me at one point. I could see his iridescent bronze feathers gleaming in the sunlight in the far corners of my peripheral vision, while he stood under an evergreen. But he saw my grandpa, and immediately darted off into the woods never to be seen again.
Even if he hadn't been spooked by my grandpa, I wouldn't have been able to shoot the turkey. That old longbeard was smart enough to come around behind me, and was so close, that if I even twitched, he would've seen me. Still, I glanced back to see why he had spooked if my grandpa had been so still. It would've been awesome to be within reaching distance to a wild turkey even if I couldn't safely shoot it. Maybe then, I would've had the chance to harvest a turkey in a less conventional, more primitive way. My grandpa was allergic to the trees, and kept pulling out a bright white tissue, and pulling down his bandanna to wipe his nose. The bird had seen his white tissue and ran off. I scolded my grandpa for that, pointing out that turkeys can see all of the colors we can see, actually have sharper vision than us, and are incredibly skittish. After that, my grandpa agreed to just let his bandanna deal with his allergies for him.
