Dark-thirty. Clouds made it seem even darker as Bob and I stumbled down the field access road, heading for a fallow bottomland field. I’d roosted a flock of hens and poults the previous evening along the Big Piney River. To avoid spooking the turkeys the evening before, I’d left my decoy set up in the field as I backed out at dark.

With one plump bird over his shoulder, the author takes in a scenic view of the Big Piney River bottom where he hunts fall turkeys. Photo by Spencer Turner.

Dawn was but a thought in our minds as we moved quietly along the field edge to where we could see Gertrude, my old decoy, and then backed into the fence line under low oak trees for concealment. Bob used a low seat; I had a bucket to rest on.

Dawn showed over the Ozark hills as the roosted turkeys began to talk with one another. It was light enough. Bob yelped softly using his box call. Turkeys answered. Pulses quickened as we anticipated turkeys dropping out of the trees and into the field.

Turkeys left the roost, hooked a hard right and flew to the end of the field a quarter-mile away from where we sat. The story of my life: Close but no cigar! That’s why they call it turkey hunting.

We called a few more times with no visible response from the feeding birds.

We relaxed enjoying the new day while Bob lit a cigarette and we commiserated and discussed what to do next.

Three birds sailed across the field from the far hill. One landed in a tree above us, and two others in the field near Gertrude.

I slowly raised my shotgun, waiting from Bob to shoot.

“Shoot,” he whispered in my ear, then louder. “Shoot!”

The old hen over our heads, cocked her head and looked down.

Now or never, I thought, and pulled the trigger on one of the half-grown poults — a fryer. Mom and her surviving offspring flushed, flying downfield, joining the other turkeys as they, too, flushed from the field.

Bob congratulated me as we relaxed in the new sun, as dawn reached the field and warmed the world.

As we walked out, Ray Eye, Eye On the Outdoors host, met us with his ATV and congratulated me again. He’d finished filming earlier in the morning and after hearing the shot came to pick us up. We talked turkeys and how they’d react in fall. Ray explained that for him fall hunting was much more challenging than spring gobbler season.

THE INS AND OUTS OF FALL TURKEY HUNTING
Let me combine Eye’s thoughts and mine about hunting fall turkeys. Fall for me is one of the most beautiful times to be in the Missouri woodlands and hunting turkeys is just one of the many opportunities we have each year. What makes fall turkey hunting so enjoyable is the long season, without the pressure of only three weeks that we have in spring; fall colors run rampant both in the Ozarks and wood lots of northern Missouri, and the turkey population is at its peak.

Ray Eye’s thoughts and mine suggest in fall most turkey hunters ambush their turkeys. I’m guilty. Over the years, I’ve ambushed most of my fall turkeys, birds that walked by a fixed blind or location and were shot. There’s nothing wrong with that approach; however, Eye points out that fall birds — hens, poults, and toms — can be just as easily called. Yes, you read this right, fall toms will respond to a call; more on this later.

Missouri’s fall turkey season is an artifact of the great success the Missouri Department of Conservation has had restoring wild turkeys to the state and the population response to the management efforts. Turkey hunters kill more Eastern turkeys in Missouri than in any other state.