Video Courtesy of American Gun Dog

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The First Taste
My turkey-dogging problem began innocently enough with an invitation from Quaker Boy Game Calls' Dave Streb to hunt at Turkey Trot Acres Lodge in Candor, N.Y., the country's only lodge that offers turkey hunts with dogs. Fresh off a weekend of traditional-"and frustrating-"fall turkey hunting at our club in New York's Catskills, my hunting partner Ralph Stuart and I jumped at the chance. Streb, Turkey Trot's owner Pete Clare, and John Byrne's son, J.T., were waiting for us on the porch.

"Get your crap on and let's go,-¿ Streb said. "We've got a flock located and we need to go now.-¿

He wasn't lying. We got to the field where the group had seen the flock feeding and loosed the dogs. Just 20 yards from the tailgate, Aggie and Shot, two black-and-white, setter-looking dogs, picked up the scent and rocketed into the woods. Within moments came the sounds of frenetic barking followed by scattering turkeys-"they seemed to be everywhere before I could even gain my bearings. Not wanting to shoot a bird on the wing (the game isn't played that way), we watched turkeys run and fly past us.

"Can someone please explain to me what the hell is going on?-¿ I asked.

"It's actually pretty simple,-¿ Clare responded. "We get to where we heard the dogs bark. That's the break site, and fall turkeys will almost always return to that exact spot. If it's a family flock of hens and this year's poults, they'll come back within a couple of hours. A gobbler flock will come back as well, but it could take a day or two. What we'll do is find some setup trees, zip the dogs into camouflage bags, and wait until we hear birds. Once they start, we imitate what they do and call them in.-¿

I was skeptical that they'd be back to this same spot. But only half an hour after we set up, birds began to talk. Both Streb and Clare used boat-paddle box calls to imitate a dominant hen assembly-yelping to her poults somewhere in the distance. From the high-pitched kee kees approaching our setup, a turkey was buying into the ruse. I risked a look to my left to see Stuart bearing down on his shotgun bead. Out ahead of his barrel stood the source of the whistling kee kees. He dumped the bird at 30 yards. At the shot, the dogs leaped from their camouflage sacks and were on the downed turkey in midflop. Streb held me back and told me that I was next.

Streb picked up his calling pace, never missing a beat. Another distant hen mimicked his calls. The report of Stuart's shotgun obviously had no lasting effect on the regrouping turkeys.

"Get your gun up,-¿ he whispered.

The 25-yard chip shot was too easy for even me to miss. As we collected turkeys, dogs, camo sacks, and stories, we walked off that hillside serenaded by the kee kees and yelps of the remaining members of the flock. It was an afternoon that changed my autumn days in the woods forever.