By Jim Spencer

It was one of those common but angst-causing situations that occur so often in turkey hunting: I had two birds gobbling well at first light, but they were on separate ridges with a deep, wide creek in between. Going to one of the turkeys meant I'd have to cut myself off from the other. After listening indecisively for a few minutes, I eeeny-meeny-miney-moed my way to a decision and started the short but steep climb to the gobbler on the north ridge.

You can guess what happened. By the time I got where I needed to be to join the contest with the north gobbler, he'd flown down and dummied up. Despite my sexiest yelps, clucks and cutts, I couldn't get a peep out of him.

Meanwhile, the gobbler across the creek on the south ridge had also come to the ground. Instead of going silent, though, he was burning the woods down over there. He answered every noise I made and a lot of other noises besides - late owls, crows, the go-to-work-time steam whistle of a distant sawmill.

In a "normal" turkey hunting situation, I'd have been out of luck. But this time, I merely dropped off the ridge, got in my boat, used the electric motor to swiftly and silently cross the creek, and climbed the south ridge to get level with the gabby gobbler. Less than an hour later, I was speeding back across the lake to the boat ramp, giving the south-ridge gobbler his first and last boat ride.

Hunting midsized and small streams from a canoe can put you in territory that's rarely hunted by others. Photo by Jill J. Easton

But much of the excellent public-land hunting in Arkansas and other states is found near or on large artificial lakes. Many of these lakes are bordered by wildlife management areas or national forest land, and even those that aren't almost always have a fringe of public-domain land surrounding the lake where hunting is allowed. Still, most hunters on these lakeshore areas stick to dry land, and, even here, turkey hunters who boat to their birds are in the minority.

The biggest reason for this is probably because hauling and launching a boat adds one more complication to an already pretty complicated undertaking. It's impossible to deny that fact, but in my opinion, it's beside the point. Hunting by boat offers so many advantages that it's hard for me to believe so few hunters do it.

First of all, using a boat offers the turkey hunter a chance to stretch out, to expand the area he or she can cover in a day's hunt. Many public-land hunters like to "run and gun" - that is, to move from place to place and listen for gobbling or try to pull a response out of a responsive bird. By doing this from a boat on a large lake, you can hear into a lot more territory in a lot less time than you can by driving along forest service roads and stopping to listen and hoot. That's extremely important during that all-too-brief window of early-morning roost gobbling, when turkeys are most talkative and easiest to hear.

Public-land turkeys wise up quickly to the run-and-gun method as practiced by road-running hunters. It's a viable hunting technique, sure, but most of the birds susceptible to it get to visit the check-stations early in the season. The survivors quickly learn to associate the sound of gravel popping under tires, followed by turkey calls, owl hoots or crow calls coming from the same direction, with hunters. These wary birds may be within easy hearing distance of a road-running hunter, but most of them will never betray their presence with a gobble.

A few seconds after the gravel stopped crunching, the sound of a crow call split the April morning. The gobbler remained quiet. I didn't call, either, because I didn't want him to gobble at me and give away his presence to the other hunter. Then the guy on the road cranked out some very good yelps and cutts first on a slate call, then on a diaphragm and, last, on both in concert. The calling was good. If I'd been the gobbler, I'd have probably answered it. However, this late-season bird wasn't so inclined.

The hunter stayed on the road two football field lengths from this fired-up turkey for the next quarter-hour, calling every two or three minutes, and the gobbler uttered nary a peep. Neither did I. Finally I heard a door slam, then the sound of a vehicle starting, and then, again, the crunching of gravel, fading away this time. Then silence. I figured the jig was up, but I didn't have anything else going, so I sat there. After five minutes, I sent out a series of tentative yelps. The gobbler answered from the same place he'd been in when he shut up, and 15 minutes later I pulled the trigger on him.

I'd like to be able to tell you that turkey was a hook-spurred old veteran of four or five spring hunts, but he was a two-year-old with spurs the shape of Hershey's Kisses. Still, even at his tender age, when he was supposed to be a pushover and come galloping to the call, he'd already learned to associate the sound of a vehicle on gravel with danger. He wasn't a particularly wary turkey, as evidenced by the fact that I easily finished him off after the other hunter left, but his behavior clearly indicated an immunity to standard run-and-gun tactics.

Practicing those same run-and-gun tactics from the water side of a gobbler is usually a higher-percentage play. For one thing, you'll be calling to the gobblers from the direction opposite that from which they hear most of the calling. For another, your calling won't be associated with the sound of popping gravel; there's the sound of the outboard approaching and then being shut off, of course, but a lakeside turkey hears this sound every day of his life. It's been my experience that an outboard doesn't bother turkeys at all.

A water-based turkey hunter also has the advantage of acoustics. You can hear a turkey a lot farther from a boat than you can on land, regardless of whether he's in a tree or on the ground. Sound carries farther across water, and in most situations there won't be as many trees between you and the bird to muffle the sound of his gobbling.

It's also much easier to maneuver into a good calling position on a gobbler before setting up. If you're ground-bound and you hear a gobbler at the top of a steep bluff, it's a simple matter to move up or down the lake to find an easier route to the top of the ridge. You can also usually get there faster, and every experienced turkey hunter is painfully aware of the advantage of setting up quickly.

Using a boat for turkey hunting is made to order for those who enjoy tent camping. Cool, scenic, secluded campsites are common along the shores of most large lakes, and it's a rare pleasure to wake up in the middle of your hunting area and hear that first gobble while you're still sipping the last cup of coffee around the fire.

For those turkey hunters who like to fish (and who among us doesn't?), there's another obvious advantage to hunting by boat. Many times I've heard gobblers while I was casting for bass along the shores of a lake. Even if you don't care to mix turkey hunting and fishing, you have the option to fish after you tag that lakeside bird.