Outdoors columnist Dan Geddings: The wild side

The sound was distant and muffled. I was unsure of the direction and was somewhat surprised to hear it this time of the year and so early in the morning. The sound was fragile, and I wasn't sure that I had really heard it. Maybe I had just imagined it. I turned my head toward the suspected direction and was delighted to actually hear it again.

It was a wild turkey gobbler announcing his existence to the world. The dawn was coming, but the big timber where I was sitting was still dark. A few minutes passed, and I thought, "well that's it, just two gobbles." But as soon as that thought cleared my consciousness, he gobbled again.

Of course, I was actually deer hunting, but turkeys are my first love. So, I was more focused on the serenading turkey for the moment. The woods were taking shape around me in the morning light, and the sound of the gobbler was clearer now. I could tell that he was to my front in the big swamp to the northwest. I counted a dozen more gobbles, then the woods fell silent. Eventually, my focus wandered back to deer hunting.

Movement in my peripheral vision to the right caught my attention, and I turned my head to see a large black shape in the timber, near the woods road I had walked in on. It moved toward the road, and I realized it was a turkey. They tend to look black at a distance and in poor light. It was a big gobbler, and oddly, he seemed to be in a hurry.

The longbeard stepped down the road in a very deliberate walk, stopping occasionally to stretch his head up and listen. I was sitting 20 feet above the ground in a metal tree stand with camouflage netting to hide me. The stand is about 60 yards from the road. He never saw me. The light was better in the woodland road, and the old bird was glistening in a blaze of iridescent colors. Browns and copper sheens. His head and neck a brilliant red, white and blue.

There is an open shooting lane from the stand to the road at my left front, and I was hoping to get a good look at the bird when he crossed the lane, but he turned sharply into the woods toward the big swamp. I could hear him purring as he went down the hill. Now the quiet reigned supreme again.

I scanned the woods around me carefully, hoping to spot a buck. Every crackle in the leaves drew my attention. But it was only the busy squirrels at work. Then an unusual sound came from the distant swamp. It was very hard to hear at first, but it got louder, and I realized it was a gobbler fight. There was loud squawking, excited purring and multiple gobbles. I could imagine a gang of male turkeys locked in battle to claim a place of dominance in the "pecking order" of the turkey world. I knew then that the bird I had seen had heard the gobbling and was headed to challenge the noisy gobbler in the swamp. The fight went on for an extended period of time but eventually ended. I could only wonder about the victor. Was it the bird I had seen?

The sun was up now, and brilliant shafts of light pierced the beautiful woods around me, chasing the shadows away. It was cool and pleasant, and I wanted to linger, but a family obligation awaited me at home.

The gentle breeze was a crosswind now, and I realized a deer could approach from behind me, so I stood in the stand and scanned the woods to the south. I didn't see anything, so I lowered my rifle, then climbed down. When I got to the ground, a subtle sound and a slight movement behind the stand caught my attention. At about 40 yards, a big deer loped away, then stopped. It blended into the forest so well that it was impossible to see. I looked over at my rifle hanging nearby on the rope I had used to lower it, then back toward the deer. A flash of white marked its retreat.

It had certainly been a morning on the wild side.

Email Dan Geddings at cdgeddings@gmail.com.