Few things are more enjoyable than the spring turkey season. This morning I walked outside to see what the weather was doing, and I could see innumerable stars twinkling away. I’ve read that what we can see as stars with the naked eye are actually huge galaxies as large or larger than our own. The wind is calm this morning, and I could hear an owl hooting back towards the huge oak bottom where I intend to hunt this morning.
It won’t be long until the first train of the day blows its horn at the Bentonia crossing. Often, I hear big Tom turkeys gobbling their displeasure at it, but I like to hear it as it rumbles its way to some faraway destination. When the sun starts to peek out, the forest will come alive. Red and grey squirrels will scamper through the trees chattering away at perceived and real enemies as they look for breakfast, crows will be screaming and cawing as they begin chasing hawks, and birds of every color in the rainbow will be chirping up a storm. This time of year, the forest comes alive and the dead and dried leaves of a long winter are replaced by glistening new growth and the forest looks sparkling clean as opposed to its dingy and seemingly dead former state.
In a few minutes, I will walk about a half mile to my favorite spot and listen for a gobbler to greet the day and then hoof it over to try to get as close to him as possible before he flies down to search for some companionship. There is no confusion as to gender identity in this scenario. A male is a male and a female is a female, only humans seem to be confused as they create chaos by bucking God’s natural order of things.
When the time is right, I will offer a few seductive yelps on my turkey call and try to sound as sexy as I can. This time of year, the big mature gobblers only have one thing on their mind and that is to mate. The old Tom will gobble, which is a turkey’s way of summoning the lovely hens to him. I will stay put and try my utmost to call to him and say I’m not going anywhere but it will be well worth your trouble if you come to me, big boy. Unless he is preoccupied with real hens, soon enough I will see him slowly walking towards me in full strut styling and profiling as he looks for me. My heart will be pounding as I patiently await a clean shot. If he is large enough, his days will be over with a single pull of a trigger.
Bunny huggers don’t start crying me a river. Most wild turkeys don’t live past four years old in the wild, and their fate is usually at the hands of younger gobblers attacking them from all sides. It is far more humane to harvest a mature gobbler with a single shot, than for him to be pecked and spurred to death in a battle where he is vastly outnumbered. Just like the green leaves of spring replacing the old and worn-out foliage, the youngsters will take over and the cycle will repeat itself year after year.
So many folks suppose hunting is about killing something. While it is an important part of harvesting game, it is small in comparison to enjoying the glory of God’s wonderland and experiencing it first-hand. I can’t wait for the season to begin and am sorrowful when it ends. Fortunately, fishing is next on the agenda and God has seen to it that we can enjoy a bountiful harvest from the ocean or the freshwater ponds and rivers that cover our beautiful earth. No Trump dilemma, no trans issues, no crime, no wars, just sheer adoration of a Creator that is too big to even imagine. Oops, time to go!
Genesis 1:28
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.