Spring Gobbler and Ol’ Beard Dragger He Who Flights and Runs Away... By Don Knaus
I
t was late May, nearing the end of spring gobbler season. I looked at my wristwatch. Eight o’clock. My rear was sore. I’d been sitting against the oak trunk since five a.m. I’d watched the sun rise, listened to the morning tweets of woodland birds, watched a skunk meander near, and heard three gobblers show off their voices from the roost. And I’d only clucked and putted twice. Ol’ Beard Dragger had taught me that, at least. Who? Well, I first saw Ol’ Beard Dragger the previous spring. Actually, it’s possible I saw him as a poult years before.
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I might have let him pass as a jake, the spring I shot his grandfather. But, on the first day last spring, he came readily to my calls, gobbling a steady beat. At fifty yards he spread his tail and stopped. “Just five more steps,” I whispered. He sensed that something wasn’t quite right and proceeded to walk away. Every time I hit the call, he spun around and angrily gobbled at me, quite out of range. Then, on a scouting mission in early April, I saw him and named him “Ol’ Beard Dragger.” The dirt road leading to Ol’ Beard Dragger’s field was solid ice. I parked
at the end of the road and walked up the lane. Where the sun had fought through the trees, the farm road was almost clear of ice and snow. The spring-soft silt made for silent stalking. I neared the edge of the field and saw seven hens scurry off. “There’s got to be a gobbler or two to love ’em next month,” I mused. I tiptoed to the field and saw more turkeys to my right. One of the birds was huge, nearly twice the size of the others. Binoculars up, I zoomed in on the big guy. “My God! He’s got a beard so long it’s almost dragging on the ground.” I eased back to my truck so as not to disturb them,
