Springtime in the Rockies isn't all flowers and showers. No, what it really means is that all those turkeys that winter down in the Uncompaghre Valley begin to hoof it uphill following snow line with the ultimate goal of arriving up on the Uncompaghre Plateau for breeding season. And, that means Spring Gobbler season is under way.

Conrad

Local outfitter and good friend Conrad Wygant [AKA CCC or Colorful Colorado Conrad]
is a died in the wool high country turkey hunter, who usually hits the Plateau daily in quest of
gobbling Merriams. This year I was fortunate enough to accompany him on quite a few hunts. The usual modus is to get up about 2 AM, coffee up, get dressed for any weather eventuality from subfreezing weather to 70 degrees plus, then load up the 4 wheelers at 3 AM, and take off for the hour plus drive to snow line, wherever that happens to be.

Breaktime

The first hunt this season we had to stop way downhill from the Plateau summit because of 4 ' snow on the roads. Luckily the snow was packed hard from snowmobiles and frozen, so we could breeze up the road at 30-40 mph to get where we needed to be. By the time we unloaded the 4 wheelers temps were bottoming out around 15 degrees and it was COLD! A 45 minute run put us into where we wanted to be as the dawn was chasing dark up the eastern mountains.

After letting things quiet a bit, Conrad gave his patented coyote call and lo and behold a gobbler sounded off just down the ridge. Unlimbering my trusty Belini gun, we hoofed it over the crest and set up to make the call. Brer' gobbler responded right off and Conrad tried to convince him to come on over to see us. After 20 minutes we moved a ways and Conrad yelped. GOBBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE came back at us from under 100 yards, so we sat where we were.

Pretty quick I see a long tom strutting off to my left just uphill from us, so I slowly ease my smoke[pole around to the left to put him under the gun. Sadly, my slight movement was seen by two jakes who had eased in close looking for the hen Conrad was impersonating
and they all blew the coop. DAMN!

Rest of the morning was spent trying several ridge roads to no avail. Unfortunately we waited way too long leaving and by 11 AM snow was melting on the roads and we continually got stuck in 3-4 ' snow, requiring lots of wench outs. That was no fun!

A couple days later we tried the same area and passed a vehicle stuck in the snow. Turned out there were two young ladies from Illinois in the car who had gotten struck the previous nite trying to take an impassable shortcut to Utah. Conrad ended up having to get his truck to pull them out and escort them to dry road. They were cold, scared, and hungry , but had learned not to try short cuts without some local input.

After doing our good deed we were late getting into our hunt area, but the wind was blowing so hard we couldn't hear a gobbler if he was right on us. Over two weeks the weather was uncooperative, as were the turkeys. By then, it was time for our trip to Jacksonville, Fl and the TPC golf tournament at Sawgrass.