Editor’s Note: Nationally-known outdoor writer and hunter J. Wayne Fears of New Market, Alabama, says, “If you’ve hunted turkeys for very long, you know that sometimes they don’t do what’s expected.” This week, we’ll look at some of his turkey-taking adventures and hear what he’s learned from turkeys that haven’t done right.

The Ole Bend turkey got his name because he lived in a bend of the Tombigbee River in southwest Alabama. Ole Bend was a bully, a lover, and a control freak; all wrapped up in one lousy bird. When I hunted Ole Bend, the area where he lived had received lots of rain. The sloughs and ditches were full of water. During the first two days of the hunt, I’d blow my crow calls to locate him, and he’d nearly gobbled his head off. However, I couldn’t get close enough to call him in because water was always between us.

Ole Bend was one of those turkeys that would get in a hunter’s mind and make him do things he wouldn’t normally do. On the third morning of the hunt, I waded up a slough to reach him chest-deep in water. When I reached the same side of the bend as the bird, I discovered that he had about 20 hens with him. I couldn’t get within 150 yards of the tom due to all the hens around him. They’d give alarms whenever I approached. I’d spend the morning calling Ole Bend but couldn’t get him to budge. Walking back to camp that third day, soaking wet, I decided, “I’ll have to do something entirely different to get Ole Bend.” I knew he was the boss gobbler in that region since the other male turkeys didn’t open their beaks when Ole Bend gobbled.

I talked to a friend who suggested that we wade the chest-high slough before daylight to war with this tom and get as close as possible to where Ole Bend was roosting. I went to one end of a ridge above the water and yelped. My friend moved to the other end of the ridge and used his gobbling box. We wanted to paint a picture in the bird’s mind that he either had to fight me (another gobbler) or retreat to my friend’s side to make my friend a part of the harem.

Ole Bend soon was double and triple gobbling toward my buddy’s gobbling box and my yelper. He was having difficulty planning his subsequent actions. We’d gotten into that turkey’s mind. As the turkey walked toward the sound of the gobbling box, I’d give some soft hen yelps. Ole Bend turned around toward me, indicating that he’d pick up a new hen rather than fight another gobbler. Once I went silent, Ole Bend came within 30 yards of where I was sitting against a tree with a shotgun on my knee and my head down, and I took a clear shot at his head. That was the most exciting yet the most miserable turkey hunt I had ever been on in my entire life.

I waded back across the slough, carrying Ole Bend. Later, we weighed him. He only weighed 14 pounds, he hardly had any feathers on his body, and his spurs were barely more significant than a knob on a year-old gobbler, but he did have an 11-inch beard; some other hunters returned to that spot a few days later and reported that they heard seven other gobblers on that bend.

Lessons Learned from Hunting Ole Bend:

• Lesson #1: You can’t use all the tactics you’ve ever learned about turkey hunting when hunting an ole, wise gobbler like Ole Bend. But perhaps one of your buddies will go after that bird with you, knowing that he’d have just as good a chance as you to harvest that gobbler. If you can make a lousy gobbler sit on a limb and decide whether he wants to fight an intruder gobbler or take his harem of hens to a hen that he’s never heard before, you have a 50/50 chance of taking that bird by confusing him and allowing him time to decide what he wants to do.

• Lesson #2: You must know the number of hens – in this case, about 20 –  with the bird you hope to take. Later, I discovered that he had more hens with him than I’d thought. To be more successful, you need an accurate count of the number of hens around a gobbler and their location.

• Lesson #3: You must sit still when hens surround you. You can’t take the shot until the gobbler is separated from his hens.

• Lesson #4: You may enable other toms to move into that area after the boss gobbler is gone if you harvest the boss gobbler at the first of the season. Perhaps then you’ll have the opportunity to take one of them.

Looking for more content? Check out our YouTube channel and watch “The Hung-up Turkey with Eddie Salter” by John E. Phillips.

Check out John E. Phillips’ 12th book: “Turkeys: Today’s Tactics for Longbeards Tomorrow“

Expert Guidebooks on Turkey Hunting: Best Sellers

Turkey Hunting Tactics
This turkey hunting audiobook has entertaining chapters like: “How to Miss a Turkey”, “Hunting with a Guide”, and “The Turkey and the New York Lady”.

You’ll learn about all the subspecies of turkey across North America, how to use a turkey call, how to scout before turkey season, how to find a turkey to hunt, and what hunting gear you’ll need to put the odds in your favor to take a wily gobbler.

VERSIONS: AUDIBLE, KINDLE & PRINT

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How to Hunt Turkeys with World Champion Preston Pittman
You easily can take a turkey if you don’t make any mistakes, but you have to know what the deadly sins of turkey hunting are to keep you from making those mistakes. If you understand how to hunt a turkey, you’re far more likely to take a gobbler than if you just know how to call a turkey.

Of course, calling is important, and if you want to learn to call a turkey, Preston Pittman will teach you how to call turkeys with box calls, friction calls, diaphragm calls, and other turkey sounds.

You’ll also learn why Preston Pittman once put turkey manure all over his body to kill a tough tom.

When you have turkeys that strut and drum in the middle of a field, when you know there’s no way to get close enough to get a shot, Pittman will show you some weird tactics that have worked for him to help you hunt tough ole toms.

But the main thing you’ll learn in this book is how to become the turkey.

Using what he’s learned while hunting wild turkeys, he’s also become a master woodsman who can take most game, regardless of where he hunts. To learn more secrets about how to be a turkey hunter from one of the world champions of the sport, this turkey-hunting book with Preston Pittman is a must.

VERSIONS: AUDIBLE, KINDLE & PRINT

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The Turkey Hunting Guides’ Bible
The quickest way to learn how to turkey hunt successfully is to either hunt with a turkey hunter with years of experience or a turkey-hunting guide. These two types of turkey hunters have solved most of the problems turkey hunters ever will face. 

Just as one size of shoes won’t fit every person, one style of turkey hunting doesn’t fit each hunter.  Each turkey-hunting guide interviewed for this book has his own style of calling, hunting, and outsmarting turkeys.  

While listening to this book, make a list of the new information you’ve learned, take that list with you during turkey season, and try some of the new tactics. Then you’ll become a more versatile turkey hunter and prove the wisdom from The Turkey Hunting Guides’ Bible.   

VERSIONS: AUDIBLE, KINDLE & PRINT

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Outdoor Life’s Complete Turkey Hunting (2nd Edition)
This Audible book will help you learn how to call turkeys with two of the nation’s best, longtime and well-known turkey callers, Rob Keck, formerly with the National Wild Turkey Federation, and Lovett Williams, a wildlife biologist who recorded wild turkeys giving the calls that you’ll learn how to make on various types of turkey callers.

VERSIONS: AUDIBLE & KINDLE

Tomorrow: Hunting the Reincarnated Turkey