My Friend Dallas Lambert's Cousin's Monster Turkey Story

Common Sense Commentary: This story was sent to me by Dallas Lambert's wife Sherry. It was a real life experience of Dallas's cousin who lives in Tallahassee, FL. where I was pastor for many years. Dallas and Sherry are exceptional people and were members of our church there. RB

Desperate fight in the Virginia turkey woods


By John Roberts, Dallas Lambert's Cousin
As a Special Agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), I was transferred from my posting aboard the U.S. Naval Base, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the office at the Naval Weapons Station, Yorktown, Va., in 1990.
It was there that I became close friends with a fellow NCIS Special Agent, Scott Campbell. Scott was born and reared in Latrobe, Penn., and besides being an outstanding golfer, having worked at Arnold Palmer’s golf course as a caddy, he was an outdoorsman who was a skilled hunter of the Eastern Wild Turkey.
I grew up hunting as a boy in Wakulla County, but because my work required frequent transfers to many posts around the world, I soon abandoned the sport of hunting. Scott changed that as we began hunting turkeys and other game in the woods near Yorktown and Charlottesville, Va.
I will now relate to you readers how I became involved in a desperate fight on the occasion of my first successful turkey hunt.
I will never forget that hunt. In fact, my first gobbler was a “Citation” bird, and the tail feathers and beard are proudly displayed on the wall of my home here in Tallahassee.  The plaque is inscribed, “J.Y. Roberts, 4/17/96 – 22 lbs, Charles City County, Virginia.” The beard, which is attached, is 12 inches long.
That morning I had accompanied Scott and another NCIS Special Agent assigned to the Yorktown office, Dave Dickerson.  We were hunting in the Chickahominy Wildlife Management area in Charles City County, Va., which is about halfway between Yorktown and Richmond.
We entered the woods before daylight and each went into different locations deep in the woods. We always hunted far enough away from each other that we would not interfere if any one of us started calling a turkey into shooting range.
We had scouted the area several times before and knew there were turkeys in those woods. I had settled in to a likely spot just before daylight, and as the sun began to rise, started to use my slate call to mimic the yelp of a hen turkey.
For those of you not accustomed to hunting turkeys, during the spring hunting season, gobblers are looking for hens with whom to mate. It wasn’t long before a gobbler answered my calls and I began working him in toward me. He would come in just out of sight and then stop gobbling. They are wary, smart birds, and will often go silent to try to coax the hen to come to them, or to sneak in watching for any suspicious movement.
This gobbler did this two or three times, and would “drift” away from me each time. He soon quit responding to my calls and remained somewhat distant from me.
He would “shock gobble” to loud crows in the area.  A gobbler will almost always stop and not cross any barrier between him and the hen.
I was not as familiar with my site that morning as I should have been, so since the gobbler was safely some distance from me, I moved toward him and sure enough, found a creek between us. I crossed this creek and set up again, calling him periodically with my slate call.
Sure enough, although he never answered, I caught sight of him coming in my direction. He was too far away and through some thick brush, so I just sat very still, as he knew my position. He seemed to be in the process of circling me, as gobblers will sometimes do, sneak around and come in from behind, so I was alert to that.
After about 15 minutes, I heard a twig snap behind me and to my left.  I quickly swung my gun around and although I did not have a real clear shot, he was in killing range and knowing he had seen me and was about to run or fly, I fired. It was not a clean kill, but the bird was disabled and trying to get away.
Now don’t forget, this was my very first experience at actually shooting a gobbler, and I need to explain my thinking process at this critical juncture.
As a boy, I hunted the Canada goose with my daddy. Now and then we would wound a goose and the way we put them out of their misery was to grab the goose by the neck and swing him around to “ring his neck.” So I figured this would be the remedy for my wounded gobbler.  He was not able to run from me, so I propped my gun against a tree and ran over to the turkey.
Thus began the struggle between life and death for not only the turkey, but for me too!
Now this big bird stood almost chest high to me, and when I snatched him up off the ground by his neck, he was determined to whip me good. Lucky for me, it was a cool morning and I had heavy clothing on, because as soon as I picked up the very much alive gobbler, he struck me hard in the groin and stomach with his large spurs.
Still hanging onto his neck, which I was trying to ring, I stumbled backward and fell to the ground. What a sight that must have been.
That gobbler was scratching and clawing and covering me with his large wings as I struggled to get out from under him.
No way I could ring his neck or do much to him in that position. He definitely had the advantage being on top of me.
I was still thinking about what he could do with those spurs, maybe hitting me in the neck.
With all my might, I threw the bird off me and scrambled over to my shotgun and dispatched him with a clean head shot at point blank range.
As I laid there catching my breath, the thought came to me that some other hunter may have been in the vicinity and witnessed my unusual struggle with this wild turkey. What an embarrassment that would be!
So before picking up my trophy turkey, I sat quietly for several minutes listening and looking.
Thankfully I concluded that only me, the turkey, and God in heaven would know what happened.
Looking back on it, I think I confessed to Scott and Dave that same day as I had to explain the headless turkey I brought out of the woods.
Since then, in my old age, I actually enjoy recounting the story for the entertainment of friends, and now everyone who reads this will probably get a laugh out of it.
After all, laughter is good for the soul, and for any who may be thinking of venturing into the woods during spring gobbler season, just remember, a turkey gobbler is not the same as a Canada goose!