At the End of the Rainbow

[Red Rabbit]

At the End of the Rainbow.

 

A glance off the highway while driving to the Parker Canyon area revealed a faint rainbow coming up from the valley. The weather service had forecast a good chance of showers Thursday and Friday with Friday being the opening day of my Goulds Turkey hunt in southern Arizona .

 

Only thirty-six permits were issued this year for a spring hunt for Goulds, so I was very surprised to see I had drawn a permit for one of these treasured birds that have reintroduced by the Arizona Game & Fish Department and have successfully grown in numbers in the various sky island mountains of southern Arizona. Goulds are the largest of the turkey subspecies and are similar to the Merriams as mountain turkeys, but have white tipped tail feathers.

 

Thursday night I was at a location that friend Chris, aka SunDevil, had harvested his Goulds last year. He spoke of some large oaks that overhang the road and served as roost trees. Sure enough, a peacock locator call induced a set of gobbles after dark from those oaks, but had concern of another truck that was idling close by. I made plans to camp a little ways up the road and return early in the morning and set up a little ways up the draw for when they flew down from the roost.

 

That Thursday night, rain upon the camper shell awoke me. The pattering stopped on the roof after a few hours, but I was not expecting what had replaced it. When the alarm beeped at 4 AM, I popped open the camper door to see snowflakes descend through the beam of the headlamp. At 5 AM , the snow was still falling and looked to have accumulated a couple of inches upon the lid of the ice chest outside. Not wanting to get my Athena O/U soaked by the wet flakes, I awaited a let-up of the snow fall and possible a better Saturday morning.

 

After the time of the not-visible sunrise, snowfall had reduced to a few falling flakes, and thus I emerged from my cocoon of a sleeping bag under the camper shell. As I surveyed the white landscape and snow covered trees under the overcast skies, I heard a gobble from the valley below camp. Then another gobble was heard, which was followed shortly by the single blast from a shotgun. I suspected that a hunter in the truck the night before had set up in the snow and was a benefit of being in the elements.

 

After the other hunter had left with his drumsticks, I made a few locator calls and yelps, but was rewarded by silence. Snooze, you lose.

 

With a small sense of disappointment, I drove to another location Chris had talked of at the end of a ridge that was a roosting spot and had a water tank close-by. A yelp elicited a distant gobble response, so the pack, decoy and shotgun were mounted on the back and the pursuit was on. The gobbler responded a few times, but was moving away and finally shut up. Pursuit ended and it was back towards the truck

 

That Friday afternoon, I met Chris and Dave, another turkey hunter without a tag. We each went to different spots that evening go find and roost a bird. Dave went to where I missed out in the morning and had seen one gobbler and seventeen hens roost. Chris saw three gobblers and saw fresh tracks and drag marks in the muddy road. I heard one elusive gobbler in another creek drainage that was unresponsive to yelps and locator calls. A fantastic Arizona sunset concluded the first day, although I missed it as I was up a canyon trying to bed a bird..

 

Around the campfire, we decided to all head to where Chris had found the three gobblers without hens, as they would likely be the easiest to call in. That following morning, three gobblers were sounding off in from their roosts. As we walked down the road to get up-canyon from the chosen gobbler, it sounded off from a tree right above us. A place was chosen nearby, but after he was heard flying down, he moved up the canyon higher up above us on the slope. We gathered out deke and headed further up the road to maybe get ahead or locate the other gobbler up the canyon.

 

As we crested a rise in the road, I spied a turkey to the side down in the creek bottom

We saw 3 gobblers feeding along with several hens. They were paying us no attention, and paid no attention to Chris’ light yelps. Eventually, the flock saw us and slowly headed up the opposite slope of the creek. We moved a few hundred yards back down the creek bottom to get ahead of them, set the decoy and started calling to no avail. After twenty minutes, I got up the pull the deke and flushed the group out of the creek only fifty yards above us, Surprising, the had not called back in response to our calling, nor given any vocals of their own.

 

Since we saw them move slowly up the slope above the creek and the gobbler strutted numerous times, we went a few hundred yards further down and set up again in hopes of having the flock come back down to the creek bottom. We did communicate and sight with a bright red-breasted Trogar, a bird that sounds quite like a hoarse hen turkey. After another thirty minutes of unresponsiveness and no sighting, we decided toe still hunt up the creek bottom. Barely a hundred yards up the creek bottom, I spot a hen turkey. It detects me, and walks up the opposite side of the creek bottom. It is followed by five other hen, and a single gobbler. I keep looking for the other two gobblers, but this was the entire group. When the gobbler cleared the group of hens, a load of #5s downed the gobbler with coppery iridescent feathers. In addition to the beautiful feathers, he sported an eight inch beard and bumps for spurs. Supposedly, the lack of spurs is genetically prevalent in these Arizona Goulds. Regardless, a beautiful bird taken southern Arizona.

 

 

 

AT THE END OF THE RAINBOW…IS A POT OF GOULD.

[firstcoueswas80]

Awesome! Real pretty bird! Congrats, Doug

[Gr8 White Jr]

Woohoo! Excellent story and pics! I hope to some day be one of the very few but very lucky Goulds tag holders. Congrats on a great trophy! I love the ending, "pot of Gould"!

 

-Tracy

[Kilimanjaro]

Nice guajalote, Doug.. Congrats!

[SunDevil]

congrats Doug! as usual, the guy behind the camera did an outstanding job - especially on those last two pics. \"/

[bonecollector]

Congrats on a nice bird! Nice write up and nice pics as usual.

[Outdoor Writer]

Congrats, Doug. Great looking big bird.

[Jimmer Negamanee]

Wow! Great story and, as always, awesome pictures! Thanks for posting.

[Chef]

Way to go Doug!

That area is so beautiful at this time of the year.

Congrats on your bird.

[Red Rabbit]

Thanks all. A lot of the credit for the success goes to Chris Beck for his help based on his hunt last year. I weighed the bird and it was 19 pounds 6 ounces. The tips of the tail feathers were a little wet and dirty from its feeding along the wet creek bottom.

 

Doug

[standman]

Congrats Doug!!!! Awesome Pictures!!!! Beautiful Bird!!!!

 

Brian

[willhunt4coues]

Great Pics and write up. Congrats on a beauitful bird.

[lucky2hunt]

Fantastic job Doug! Very beautiful bird!!!

[stanley]

AWSOME Doug!!!!!! Congrats!!

 

Thanks for sharing the story and pics!

 

S.

 

[scoutm]

Congrats Doug. Great Bird and photos.