Cross the border with us as we relive a Mexican Gould’s gobbler hunt from 1997. Turkey Call Magazine Editor leads the way with this feature published in the January/February 1998 issue.
The shade of a lightning-scarred oak stump made a good blind for a luck-less gringo and his dark-skinned guide. Pancho’s broken English and my rusty Spanish led me to believe that this spot would be the best bet for my last-chance try for a Mexican mountain gobbler.
“Mucho guajolotes,” Pancho had simply said, as we shuffled through the dust of the horse-tilled, hard-scrabble corn field.
The simple affirmation of “many turkeys,” from my guide was all the fuel my confidence needed to prepare for what might lie ahead.
Five minutes into the setup, we heard the first gobbler. Poncho slowly turned his head and met my questioning stare. I couldn’t see a smile behind his face mask, but Pancho’s eyes echoed my thoughts: Game is afoot and we are here to take one home. He pulled his trusty Lynch box call from the pocket of his military surplus field jacket and returned the tom’s invitation with a conservative series of yelps. The bird gobbled as it picked its way below the rim of the mesa and was constantly getting closer.
Suddenly, the bird gobbled within gun range but just out of sight. Tall weeds and brush at the field’s edge hid any visual clues as the bird silently closed the gap. The Gould’s gobbler’s fiery red head appeared between two bushes 20 yards from me offering a clear shot. I held fire wanting to evaluate the tom’s beard length to avoid shooting a jake. The opportunity to drop the hammer vanished as the bird stepped forward and broke into full strut behind a bush. I couldn’t shoot, but I could make out the mature bird’s full fan. My hopes that the bird would walk a few feet further into the field were dashed when a real hen began yelping down the fence line to my right.
The big tom ducked out of sight and joined a small flock that walked to the far end of the field. I would later learn from Gary, who was manning a camera 10 yards behind me, that two longbeards a jake and four hens walked up behind me screened by brush, and one of the hens called the gobbler I was watching back into the brush. For the next two and a half hours that hen led every gobbler on that mountain to the far end of the field and drove all of us listening half crazy. She was the most raucous hen I’ve ever heard. If she yelped once, she yelped a thousand times that afternoon. With nothing better to do than count yelps as the birds strutted 150 yards away, once, I heard that hen yelp 31 times in machine-gun fashion without taking a breath. Alternately watching and listening to the feathered orgy, I had plenty of time to contemplate the events that let up to this two-day Gould’s marathon hunt.
On the auction block
Several months in the making, this hunt began with Mexican outfitters Ruben Del Castillo and Miguel Puig’s generous donation of a Gould’s hunt to the NWTF’s national convention February 1997 in Columbus, Ohio. Among the throng of conventiongoers enjoying the festivities were Dr. Frank Catrett and his wife Judy, who is a nurse practitioner. Regular attendees of NWTF conventions, the Lagrange, Ga., couple focuses their attention on the hunts offered at fund-raising auctions to feed their voracious appetites for turkey hunting adventure.
Having hunted with Wingshooters Lodge in 1995, Frank and Judy were determined to be the winning bidders for the Gould’s hunt. When the gavel dropped, they were already making plans for a rerun of their fantastic adventure.
The fourth member of our party was pilot Gary Sneider from Phoenix, Ariz. A custom gunsmith by trade, Gary’s claim to fame was building super-accurate sniper rifles used by the Marines who landed in Iran to rescue the American hostages in 1979. Combining Gary’s hunting experience south of the border with the Catrett’s assured me that I’d be able to gain much Gould’s hunting knowledge, despite any possible language barriers.
Landing first in Hermosillo to clear Mexican immigration, we refueled and flew east to the mountain village of Yécora. Buzzing the sleepy town, we alerted Miguel and his staff that it was time to clear the livestock from the runway so we could land.
Later the first night, Leon Kriesel, a member of the NWTF’s Northwestern Nebraska Chapter, arrived in camp with his wife Cheryl. They had made the drive in from Hermosillo and were ready for a rest.
First morning’s hunt
The first morning out Judy and Frank headed for a ranch about an hour outside of Yécora. Judy was the first to score. At 6:50 a.m. she pulled the trigger on a mature tom weighing nearly 20 pounds, and carrying a 9 14/16-inch beard and spurs measuring 15/16-inch for the right spur and 14/16-inch for the left. By 9:30, Frank was watching the slow advance of another amorous gobbler. His bird tipped the scales at 19 pounds, 13 ounces, had a 10 14/16-inch beard and spurs measuring 6/16 and 8/16-inch.
Leon also met with luck the first morning. His bird took a bit of coaxing, but came to the call at 7:50. The old gobbler was the best taken in camp, weighing an even 21 pounds, with a 10 9/16-inch beard and spurs measuring 15/16 inch. According to the NWTF’s Wild Turkey Record’s method of scoring, Leon’s bird scores a 60.875, and also ties as the best wild turkey taken during the spring 1997 season by Wingshooters Lodge hunters.
Gould’s flock growing
The Gould’s population is doing quite well in Mexico due to the near absence of predators. In the 1950s cattle ranchers were allowed to use 1080 poison to eradicate Mexican wolves, but black bears, mountain lions, bobcats and eagles also fell prey to this indiscriminate chemical. The few remaining coyotes, coti mundi, grey foxes, skunks raccoons and mountain lions have allowed the wild turkeys in remote areas to flourish. Despite the absence of predators, wild turkeys and other wild animal populations are challenged by illegal subsistence hunting. The widespread poverty entices some locals to pot wild turkeys or coues whitetails when the opportunity arises.
Miguel Puig has an interesting arrangement with local ranchers who harbor turkey populations. He leases 52 ranches, which amount to more than 100,000 acres. The majority of payments are made in seed corn and seed potatoes. In turn, the ranchers protect the turkeys from poachers.
In response to the flourishing Gould’s population the Mexican government had lengthened the spring season. Traditionally, the Sonoran Gould’s season ran from about April 1 to April 26, but the season was extended in 1997 until May 11.
My first taste of Gould’s hunting was on Gabriele’s “rancheria.” After a 15-minute hike around a steep ridge and up a rocky draw, we heard two gobblers, but my guide, Rosando, opted to walk past the first bird and set up on the second bird. We set up about 100 yards from the bird’s roost. After sliding into position I listened to the roosted tom utter his mating call. It was then that it struck me how peculiar the Gould’s sounded in comparison to the other turkeys I have heard gobble across the United States. By comparison, an Eastern seems to shout its gobble, whereas the Gould’s toms sound like a pre-adolescent choir boy clearly saying the words “gobble, gobble, gobble.” I chuckled to myself thinking that the first person who ever called the male wild turkey a “gobbler” was surely listening to a Gould’s tom.
The tom had several hens roosted with him. When they flew down the birds were more interested in feeding and fighting than coming to a call.
While we waited on the birds to settle their disagreement I heard what sounded like a single hen yelp. A few moments later, a single yelp was heard again. Already on alert, I anticipated a hen was approaching and hopefully had a gobbler in tow. Minutes dragged on as I waited… and waited. This happened on at least three occasions the first morning. Once in camp, I shared my story of the no-show turkeys and Miguel chuckled and said, “you have been tricked by a koa.” He went on explaining that the koa’s songbird call mimicked a turkey’s yelp quite well. What the locals called a koa, I later learned, is either the elegant trogan or eared trogan. In addition to these charming songbirds, other birdlife abounds in the Sonoran mountains that would delight any bird watcher.
Later that first morning we struck another gobbler at 8:00 a.m. It could have been the same gobbler, but it was 500 yards farther along a nearly sheer face of the mountain. We worked from ridge to ridge on the 1,000-acre ranch trying to find a cooperative bird, but finally gave up for the morning.
After a sumptuous lunch and siesta, Gary and I headed out of camp for another try at filling our tags. An hour’s drive along some of the most rugged roads I’ve ever ridden on left me doubly eager to go afoot for a while once we reached the remote ranch to hunt that evening. The wind picked up, limiting our hearing, and subsequently we heard nor saw anything wearing turkey feathers. Gary fared well on his evening quest, leaving me as the lone hunter in camp with an unfilled tag at the close of the first day.
The next morning, and last day of our hunt, Rosando, Gabrielle, Peto and I drove about an hour to an area that had been nicknamed Senoiritas’ Ridge by Kentucky turkey biologist George Wright, due to the large number of hens he encountered on a hunt a few weeks previous. Just as the eastern sky began to brighten the wind picked up. I barely heard one tom sound off once. As it grew lighter the wind picked up in velocity, so hearing a bird over 100 yards was nearly impossible. We split up, Gabrielle and I going in one direction and Rosando in the other to find a gobbling turkey. Neither of us found a cooperative bird, so we met back at mid-morning and hiked back to the truck, stopping to call down each hollow on the way back. When we got to the truck I unloaded the shotgun and tucked my five alloted shells in my turkey hunting vest pocket.
On the return trip we stopped at a spot where Rosando had worked gobblers in the past, so we decided to give it one more half-hearted try. I grabbed the Remington and three shells from my vest and followed him down the ridge. We stopped and called a few times and listened, and again, nothing answered. Upon returning to the truck I handed the gun to Rosando and he unloaded the three shells and placed them in his pocket.
Last ditch effort
Being the only American in camp with an unfilled tag, that afternoon would be my last chance for a Gould’s, since we would be flying out early the next morning. Miguel opted to switch guides and send me with Pancho to the ranch where Frank and Judy had bagged their birds. Gary decided to join us and take in the action armed with my 35mm camera.
After a 45-minute ride, the three of us plus Pancho’s son and a friend arrived at the edge of a mesa corn field. When Pancho uncased the pump-gun, I got a funny feeling. I thrust my hand into my vest pocket and luckily found the only two 12 ga. shells for 15 miles. As we walked across the corn field from the beginning of this story, I had a certain foreboding as I thumbed those two lonely shells into the Remington’s magazine.
At about 8:00 p.m. I heard the distinct sound of wings as birds began flying to roost. Light was fading as the sun dipped below the trees. All of the turkeys we had been watching filtered into the tree line, but one lone gobbler walked into the field and gobbled and strutted for all he was worth. Two hens materialized 30 yards to my left as they scooted under the barbed-wire fence. When they saw the gobbler they began yelping and trotted toward the lone tom. My heart was sinking with the setting sun. I couldn’t believe that I had traveled so far and was watching the finale. Pancho pulled out all the stops with his calling. He was slapping the lid of that Lynch for all it was worth while making some calls with a diaphragm that I’d never heard at any turkey calling contest. The hens didn’t break stride when they reached the strutting tom, passing him as they entered the woods.
Miraculously, the gobbler broke strut and began running toward us. My disappointment was turning to disbelief. Was I going to get a chance at a Gould’s after all? My confidence grew with the bird’s every stride… 60 yards, 50, 40, then he skidded to a halt at 31 yards and began pecking in the corn stubble. I wanted to scream in frustration. Ideally, I wanted a shot under 25 yards to give the unfamiliar gun every chance to put an effective pattern where it counted. The thought raced through my mind that any moment the gobbler would run or fly to his roost limb leaving me without a shot. I had my left hand under the forearm of the gun and rested on the bottom wire of the fence for a rock-steady rest. My chance came when the bird picked his head up. At the shot the bird jumped off the ground and clawed for altitude with his mighty wings. I swung with him and hammered him with my last shell. He rolled half way over in the air and crashed in a tangle of cactus and manzanita.
At this point the hunt went from drama to comedy. I scrambled under the fence yelling in a mixture of English and Spanish “tally ho, boys,” and that it might be prudent to follow this bird as quickly as possible. (That wasn’t exactly what I said, but if you’ve been in a similar spot you can probably adlib my response.) If you also have tried to start a 100 yard dash with both of your legs asleep you too might imagine what a corn field tastes like. The rest of the crew had lost sight of the bird when it took wing so they headed into the woods in the general direction I was pointing. I finally got some blood pumped into my running gear and dashed across the corner of the field and dove into the thorny brush. Just at the woods edge I locked up like a bird dog on point. I froze up in pain as that dreaded tingling sensation set in. I couldn’t move until the pain subsided, so I did the only thing possible and started looking on the ground around me. I glanced over my shoulder toward where I had been sitting to get a line on the bird’s escape. There on the ground behind me a few feet away the gobbler squatted trying to hide. I yelled out and gave chase. We went around or through what seemed like every cactus in that spot with me just out of reach of that bird. Pancho figured out our game and joined my turkey rodeo. I was header and Pancho was the heeler. It was a glorious feeling to finally wrap my hands around that bird’s neck while Pancho snatched his feet.
There are few things in life that compare with the feeling of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. And although the guides speak little English, it didn’t make a difference where it really matters. Once we were in the woods the linguistic barrier was bridged by that universal unspoken language know by seasoned hunters.