DON SHIPP: FIVE TURKEYS I DIDN'T IMPRESS WITH MY THREE WORLD TURKEY CALLING CHAMPIONSHIPS

The Field Baron

EDITOR'S NOTE: Don Shipp of Clinton, Arkansas, an avid turkey hunter and caller and member of Mossy Oak's Pro Hunt Team and MAD Calls, has won the World Turkey Calling Championship, sponsored by Mossy Oak for many years, in 1997, 1998 and 1999. He also has won the Arkansas State Championship six times and the Southwest Open Championship four times. This week, Shipp will tell us about five tough toms and how he or his clients outsmarted them.

Another tough tom lived in a region I used to hunt in southern Missouri. My clients and I hunted him on and off for a year or two but didn't spend a lot of time with him because we knew he was a tough bird. We'd go to him in mid-morning, but he'd always be out in open fields with some scattered trees. I went to the turkey one morning and just watched him. He was roosting out in the field, and he would fly out to the very tip of the field to the highest knob. I heard him gobble there a lot of times, but you couldn't call to him because he just wouldn't have it. You'd call, and the bird would just break and run about 200 yards away from the direction of the calling. But if a gobbler came in that field, the tom would come in pretty aggressively.

I went in one evening and roosted the tom in his favorite tree. But since this hunt took place before strutting decoys came out, I took a hen decoy and a fanned turkey tail. I tacked and taped the fan onto the hen decoy. The next morning, I climbed out to the high knob where the gobbler had been flying to and set up the hen decoy with the fan attached to it. Then I settled back in the field about 20 yards from the decoy. The turkey gobbled and gobbled. When the day had enough light for him to see the fan, he flew down and marched straight up to the decoy with his wings half-cocked and his head as red as it could be. The stubborn bird came over to whip the gobbler that was strutting in his field. I didn't call or say a word; I just gave the tom something visual that he didn't like. That's how I was able to bag him. You've got to out-think those older, smart turkeys -- especially a field turkey.

TOMORROW: THE BURNT-UP GOBBLER