HUNTING
Sending in your dog to bust up a flock of fall turkeys, then setting up to call the birds in, is a great approach – if your dog can sit still and be quiet. (SCOTT HAUGEN)
HOW TO HUNT FALL TURKEYS WITH A DOG By Scott Haugen
T
he whites of Echo’s eyes rolled to the left as she tracked movement, but I dared not budge. In front of us, eight paces away, stood a hen turkey that had responded to a series of kee-kee calls, coming in as planned. What I didn’t anticipate was how effective the calling would be. Echo, my then-3-year-old pudel-
pointer, and I sat against the base of a fat Douglas fir tree. Fifteen minutes prior I’d sent her to flush a big flock of turkeys more than 150 yards away. The flock was feeding away from us, into a strip of open meadow bordered on both sides by fir trees. The plan was to send Echo in to bust up the flock, call her back to me, then go in together and call the flock to us using assembly calls. It worked. But what I didn’t plan
for this November day were so many birds responding all at once. First came a hen, which stood right in front of us. I was tempted to shoot her but knew there were several young toms and a monster gobbler in the flock of more than 50 birds. Echo was laying beside me, head near my left knee. When I saw Echo’s eyes roll to the left, I knew more turkeys were silently approaching. She held solid, not twitching her head or lifting an
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