War Lord: Larry Norton

EDITOR'S NOTE: Larry Norton, a two-time World Champion turkey caller, is a woods tactician who attacks turkeys by talking to them more than any hunter. While hunting Rio Grande turkeys with black powder in Texas a couple of years ago, Norton spotted a flock of turkeys in a field just before dark.

"Those turkeys will have to go to the cottonwoods about 3/4-mile away to roost," Norton explained to me. "If we can reach the trees before the turkeys do without being seen, you can take your bird before dark."

Norton is a first-class athlete who should have been on an Olympic, long-distance running team instead of becoming a professional turkey hunter. His speed afoot is only surpassed by his turkey-hunting knowledge and skill. Upon arriving at the cottonwoods, I was breathing hard like a man who had paused for a moment after being chased by a tiger.

Then Norton told me to, "Take a stand below me, and I'll sit on this little ridge. I'll call the tom. When he comes in, he'll probably walk down this old cattle road where you can bag him."

Norton cut and cackled, pausing every few minutes to watch the tom. Then after 15 minutes of intermittent calling, the veteran woodsman cut and cackled with every breath.

"He's coming. Get ready," Norton whispered to me.

Norton began to pant heavily in-between his calls. Although an experienced turkey hunter, Norton sounded from his breathing like a novice who was so excited he was about to hyperventilate. Finally, the head of the longbearded Rio Grande gobbler appeared 20 yards from the hunters. But because we'd taken a stand in a plum thicket, I couldn't get a clean shot until the gobbler passed some 10 yards from me. I was afraid that Norton's heavy breathing would spook the gobbler before I could shoot. However, at last, the old tom stepped into my shooting lane, my black-powder CVA shotgun reported, and the tom tumbled.

After we congratulated each other, picked up the bird and started walking back to camp, I told Norton that I couldn't believe how excited Norton was about the turkey coming to us.

Norton laughed deeply as he explained that, "I was panting so hard because I was about to run out of air. I had to blow the call so loud, so long and so often that I couldn't get my breath. Each time I quit calling aggressively and forcefully, the turkey stopped, went into full strut, began spinning and quit coming to us. If I hadn't kept calling until I almost ran out of air, the turkey wouldn't have come to us until after dark."

Once when Norton hunted eastern gobblers in his home state of Alabama, Norton called continuously from the time he took a stand until the bird was in my gunsights. When I squeezed the trigger, Norton was still calling to the tom.

TOMORROW: War Lord: Larry Norton, Part II