The Pope of Pope County The Main Event

Having scouted the area and located an area that we KNEW held turkeys we were ready. Since we were obviously going to be successful the hunting party grew to around 5. We camped in little backpacking tents, not because it was far from the car, maybe a mile or so but because it was FUN.

I wish I had the pics, they are in some computer drive somewhere but google yielded this image which is remarkable accurate. Our little enclave of tents arrived very late at night and we pitched our tents in the dark. We happily got to bed when the storm let loose. It literally rained all night. I was dry in my tent and in the morning stuck my head out of the tent to get the coffee started and I see that one of our campers put his tent in a low spot, it looked something like this.

He was soaked and soon our campsite looked like this. 

Well the few dry ones got out and stomped around looking for turkeys but the end result was nada. We return to camp to find our campmates trying to dry their gear. Being April after a rainstorm it was pretty humid and once the turkeys stop gobbling (they gobble when they wake up, kind of a mating call to tell the females "come and get it". Must be nice to be a male turkey, except that all the hunters are looking for you that is.

So sitting around camp drinking coffee around a smoking fire we while away the day.

This not us but it does look remarkably similar. What happens when you have a lot of frustrated hunters, with loaded guns with nothing to do. You shoot things. Cans of food, fruit anything  was game. 

So let me take a side trip to give you some background. We were duck hunting at the blind in Pistake lake. As we didn't really have a plan and didn't really know how to call and decoy ducks we resorted to the practice of pass shooting. This is the bane of real duck hunters as they sit quietly calling the ducks and luring them into range and then some hoon blasts away at them while they are way out of range. Pass shooters are the reason the duck population is increasing. 

We are engineers without wives or girlfriends to reduce our disposable income, however beer and chasing said potential girlfriends is expensive too, so I'm not swimming in cash. I decide to solve this issue with a bigger gun. The normal gun for hunting ducks is a 12gauge shotgun, it used to be a 2 3/4 in shell, but with the law change outlawing lead shot they added a 3in option to allow for steel shot to be effective, later they even added a 3 1/2 in option. So I sauntered into Gander Mountain, now this is long before the sporting goods wars, Gander was a catalog outfit with 1 retail store in nowhere Wisconsin. Cabelas was just a catalog and Bass had maybe one store in Springfield Mo. Later the all gobbled each other with Bass wining the war. Anyway, I sauntered up to the counter and asked "whats the biggest shotgun you have" He showed me a sweet pump that ran maybe $500. Again not swimming in cash I ask, how about the biggest gun that is the cheapest. He showed me the New England Pardner shown below. It was $69

This thing shoots shells that look like roman candles. I mean look at that hole. It was a single shot but you normally didn't get too many shots doing pass by shooting anyway. I took it duck hunting and it definitely shot farther. So getting ready for turkey hunting we went to my imaginary friend Phils farm and set up some targets to pattern the gun. Thats something good turkey hunters are supposed to do so we read, so there we go.

I set up a piece of paper maybe 4 ft by 4 ft at 40 yards. Take aim and BOOM. Now I'm a very large guy who shoots alot but wow this thing kicked. I got to look at the target and i see this huge hole in the middle of the pattern, its the wad. Now for those who dont know the wad is the holder for all the pellets, it normally falls maybe 20yards away having done its job of holding the shot while it goes down the barrel, this was so powerful the wad went 40yards and made a big hole in the paper. Impressed I do it again and one more time, by the time I'm done with the third shot I flinch so bad that i dont even hit the paper. I shoot 50 rounds of 30-06 at a sitting with no flinch and after the 3rd shot I'm done. You see, turkey loads are maximum power and maximum weight of LEAD, unlike that steel duck shot which is light. So as all engineers know Force = Mass times acceleration, increase the mass of the shot and you will increase the recoil. So I thought to myself perhaps my unwitting fellow hunters need a lesson in Physics. Being men when someone tells you this gun kicks alot they want to try it. Its kind of like when you emit a very bad smell you want someone else to smell it too, and you get wow, that smells bad.

We get to one particular hunter, at lease 1/2 my size, he always had the best of everything, even if it wasn't the best, he thought it was and would tell us so. He ponys up to the bar and fires off a shot, BOOM and he physically throws the gun to the ground with this horrible look on his face like he had been bitten by a snake. We laughed for hours at his reaction.

So back to Southern Illinois, we have some new people who have not experienced the joy of the 10gauge. And once again as predicted they want to shoot it, even with the warning and just like last time they only shoot it once. It truly is the gun that no one will borrow for turkey hunting, even Im not dumb enough to shoot it, but it stays in the gun cabinet just in case I meet a new victim.

Well we hunt and walk about for several days, no turkeys.

At night we experienced a new noise, there is a bird that is called a whip poor will. And it makes a noise just like that. Several of the nights had fearsome storms some with green skies with tornado sightings, do we seek cover. Nope we gape at the wondrous site and hide under nylon tents. But during one quite night we hear this sound, i have no idea what this bird looks like but its loud and it makes this noise about every 30 seconds. If you shout or make a loud noise they stop for awhile but resume after a few min. After about 1hr of this when Im about to get my shotgun and flashlight out I hear from the other tent.

Whip poor wills must die, I guess someone else was not enjoying the song too.

We made our daily treks to the dari -barr, yes its written that way, check it out

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Golconda+Dari-Barr/@37.3680191,-88.4887653,18z/data=!4m12!1m6!3m5!1s0x8870a1f9ffd301ff:0xaf85fdc0d1ee183!2sGolconda+Dari-Barr!8m2!3d37.3680279!4d-88.4887922!3m4!1s0x8870a1f9ffd301ff:0xaf85fdc0d1ee183!8m2!3d37.3680279!4d-88.4887922

So we discovered something fun, the woods are full of spring ticks and will a lot of talk about Lymes disease we need to be sure we dont let them do their damage. The problem is that its hard to see those places that you need to look in the woods. They get in your wastbands and socks basically anywhere they can use the clothing as something to help them dig in. Gross i know. You have to go looking for these things, inspiration comes. We go to the dari-barr, basically a dairy queen and go into the bathroom and strip, check all our skin the the bright lights in the bathroom and then once verifed free of ticks we redressed in our 5 days old hunting clothes and ate our ice cream.

So by now you are wondering what the pope in pope county is all about, well one fine day its raining out but Im up and hunting at dawn, Im obviously the stupid one in the group. I had taken to wearing a bandana. Its hot, I have less hair on top than I started with and its was a fashion thing. So yes, I looked like willie nelson, being a large man I cant tuck in the back of the bandana so it kind of just lays there.

So its windy out that day and I walk into the tent to wake tater and buffalo and the back of the bandanna had blown up and stayed up. I poke my head into the flap of the tent and I looked just like the hat the pope wears. And just there I became the pope of pope county

Rest assured, no turkeys were harmed in this adventure, just fruit and assorted canned goods.