The sounds were unmistakable.
Clucks, gobbles, cackles and the like, followed not far away by the sound of shotgun fire.
Must be spring turkey season.
Well, yes and no.
Those turkey sounds were being mimicked by attendees of a free workshop courtesy of Colorado Parks and Wildlife – with the National Wild Turkey Federation – on Saturday at the Old Fort Lewis campus about five miles south of Hesperus. Not far from the old campus, attendees also got the opportunity to fire shotguns at a makeshift shooting range.
It was just part of a two-day workshop designed to give adult hunting novices and beginning turkey hunters the basic skills needed to try turkey hunting during the upcoming spring season, which will open Saturday and will run through May 24.
After all but disappearing from Southwest Colorado, and the state as a whole, wild turkeys have returned in force to the landscape here. But turkey-hunter numbers, particularly those of new, younger hunters, have lagged a bit.
Saturday’s workshop potentially added a dozen-and-a-half hunters to that mix, and all 18 attendees appeared anxious to try out their newfound skills.
After a classroom session the previous night at the Durango Community Recreation Center, the 18 turkey-hunting hopefuls Saturday were divided into three groups of six and walked through turkey-hunting strategies, turkey calling and target shooting with shotguns at the range. Parks and Wildlife, the national foundation and local guides were on hand to provide expert instruction every step of the way – each attendee should have left confident in his or her ability to take part in this year’s spring hunt.
And there were about as many men as women at the workshop Saturday. Most of the attendees were younger – in their 20s, a demographic Parks and Wildlife is targeting as it tries to attract younger folks to the outdoors – but it wasn’t limited to that age group.
The turkey-calling session proved popular – if you were looking for a quiet experience, this wasn’t it. Attendees worked a variety of calls, filling the room with nonstop hen-turkey jabber.
Then it was on to the shooting range. That’s where some attendees were likely to be intimidated, but instructors made it seem easy, covering everything from safety to how to load and hold the gun to safety again – a theme throughout the range session.
All of that was interspersed with a wealth of wisdom from those in the know.
“Forty yards is the maximum distance you should shoot at an animal,” one instructor said.
“Thirty yards for an ethical shot,” another continued.
“And aim at the wattles – where the skin meets the feathers,” added that first instructor.
Yes, it will be different when any of those 18 are in the field starting as early as this week. They won’t be just making noise with a turkey call – they’ll need to make the right noise to draw in the toms – and they’ll be shooting at the real thing, not paper targets or clay pigeons.
Still, their chances of at least seeing turkeys in the field are good these days in Southwest Colorado, thanks to a management plan that brought the gobblers back from the brink.
“Our wild turkeys were nearly extirpated across the state, including in Southwest Colorado,” said Leigh Gillette, education coordinator/Southwest Region for Parks and Wildlife, who was on hand for the weekend workshop. “The Division of Wildlife made major trap-and-transfer efforts to repopulate Merriam’s wild turkeys – our native subspecies. Birds from Trinidad were brought to our area. Later, when Trinidad’s turkey population was in decline, we trapped birds from Southwest Colorado to take back there.
“The Rio Grande subspecies has also been introduced to Colorado – 1980s – in prairie and lowland river bottoms. These are limited-draw licenses only.”
For regulations and more on the spring turkey hunt, visit cpw.state.co.us/Documents/RulesRegs/Brochure/turkey.pdf.
bpeterson@ durangoherald.com