One, Two, Three: Turkey Triple-Double in the Pacific Northwest

The blind had been in place for the better part of a week, and six weeks of pre-season scouting left no doubt it was in the right spot. All that Austin Crowson and I had to do was set up the decoys and slip in quietly. As daylight broke in the Douglas fir trees amid Oregon’s Coast Range, gobbles emanated from the hills around us.

At first the setup seemed perfect, but when gobbles erupted from the trees just 20 yards from our blind, I knew we were in trouble. During all our scouting—both on foot and with trail cameras—never had the turkeys roosted here. The blind was set midway up a forested ridge in a small opening with oak trees growing on the fringes. On prior mornings, multiple turkeys had funneled through this spot but always later.

Crowson, in his mid-20s, is one of the best duck hunters I know. He’s new to turkey hunting, and I’ve had the joy of helping him learn the ropes. He was excited to hear so many toms incessantly gobbling in the trees above us, but I had to break the news to him.

“I can count on one hand the number of times over the years I’ve set up under a roost and had birds pitch into the decoys,” I whispered. It was dark. I couldn’t see Crowson’s reaction.

Moments passed, then the silence was broken by heavy wingbeats. Every bird pitched down in the opposite direction, melting into distant trees. “This might take a while,” I whispered. “We set up too close to them. Those birds likely won’t come back this morning, so we’ll have to hope other birds cooperate.”

The area had a booming turkey population with a high tom-to-hen ratio. Bachelor flocks of jakes were still around, bravely trying to seduce hens no matter how many mature toms serenaded them. For this reason I chose a duo decoy setup: a Final Approach Live Jake with a Live Breeder Hen. With all the rain, heavy fog and moisture we get in this part of the West early in the spring turkey season, I was intrigued by the jake decoy’s flocked back and articulate details, as well as the hen’s lifelike posture and paint job.

The mixed flock of toms and hens we’d set up under were our initial target birds. We’d anticipated them coming from below us. The woods fell silent over the next 20 minutes, which often happens when turkeys leave their roosts. Since most of the tom chatter had come from behind us early that morning, Crowson repositioned the decoys. He placed the hen 25 yards from our blind, facing away, and the jake decoy a few yards behind the hen to create the illusion of a chase.

Finally, a distant gobble followed one of my yelp series on a box call. That bird spurred two other flocks to gobble. They were so far away, they were barely audible to my aging ears.

When hunting in timber I like using a long, one-piece box call. The volume of this type of call penetrates Oregon’s rainforest habitat and cuts through wind and rain.

The long box was ideal for reaching long distances up and down the timbered ridge where multiple flocks of turkeys resided. The flock on the ridge behind us grew more talkative with each sound I offered. They were still a few hundred yards away but slowly closing.

After five minutes of silence, Crowson cut loose on a shorter, all-weather box call. The high-pitched tone was different from what the birds had been hearing, and it spurred a lone tom to gobble very close to us. It was the first time we’d heard this bird. Two more times Crowson offered good-sounding yelps, but the tom had quickly fallen silent.

“This is likely a lone tom that’s keeping quiet because it’s had its tail kicked by other toms,” I whispered. “It’s going to come from behind, and it might be quiet and cautious the whole time.”

A few minutes later Crowson let out a short series of very light yelps. The tom responded with a thundering gobble right behind us. Crowson gripped his gun, shaking with anticipation, his eyes big and eager. I held an index finger to my lips, signaling quiet.

Two minutes later I offered a soft yelp followed by a rolling purr on a single-reed diaphragm call. Nothing. I did it again, louder this time. The tom gobbled back. It had moved through brush and was in the timber to the right of us, still out of sight.

Moments later we saw a red, white and blue head bobbing above dark green sword fern fronds. The tom’s pace quickened when it realized it had only one jake to contend with. It approached the decoys, never strutting. Crowson made a perfect shot, dropping the tom with a payload of Hevi-Shot Hevi-18 TSS. He grabbed the tom and got back in the blind, as we knew more birds weren’t far.

I worked the box call on and off for more than an hour. Finally, three toms closed in, gobbling and double-gobbling at every sound I made. They, too, came in from behind. But rather than come through the timber, they circled to the left, passing through the clearing. Their iridescent feathers glistened in the shafts of sunlight slicing through the trees. All longbeards, their tail fans formed perfect half-circles. Once they spotted the decoys, it was an all-out footrace. The shot was easy, the bird dropping on the spot to the Hevi-18 2 3/4-inch No. 9 load fired from my 20 gauge.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t shaking with anticipation as the moment unfolded. Even after all these years, seeing and hearing strutting toms still excites me. What’s more, Crowson and I began a task we had tried achieving the season prior without success. Our goal was to each take a tom, together on the same day, in the Coast Range, in the Cascades and on the valley floor between. We were off to a good start.

BRAWLS IN THE BOTTOM

Five days later Crowson and I were huddled in a ground blind near the Willamette River. We had set the same jake and hen decoys, this time on the edge of an agricultural field. Toms could see the decoys from 200 yards away once they pitched from their roosts high in the cottonwoods.

The morning was calm and quiet. A light fog spread across the kale field. Two groups of toms gobbled in their roosts unsolicited. When the nearest flock pitched from the trees, Crowson offered raspy yelps on a box call. The toms gobbled and were soon in sight. Once they saw the decoys, three toms broke strut, stacked their feathers and sprinted across the field.

“They look like dinosaurs,” Crowson laughed, a comparison I’ve heard many hunters make over the years. It’s one I still find myself silently forming in my own mind.

In seconds the toms were on the decoys, strutting, gobbling, attacking the jake and mounting the hen. Two toms knocked over the jake decoy and spurred it with reckless abandon. The other tom spun the hen on its stake, its long beard and chest feathers folding over the plastic head on occasion. Crowson had never witnessed anything like this.

I let out a loud, aggressive yelp on a diaphragm call. We were both on our guns, safeties off. I quickly counted to three when the toms’ heads were erect and steady, and then we fired together. Two toms lay dead in the decoys. We were one step closer to our single-season sweep.

“That was insane,” Crowson hollered as we exited the blind to claim our prizes. “How many birds do you think we heard gobble this morning?” he asked.

It was hard to tell. We had scouted the area and had trail cameras set, but the several hundred acres we had permission to hunt was vast. Birds were spread out.

“How about we come back in a few days and find out,” I said. “But this time we’re leaving the guns home and bringing our cameras.”

For the past 25 years I’ve made my living as a freelance writer and photographer. There aren’t many of us left who both write and take high-quality photos. In addition to learning to how to hunt turkeys, I wanted Crowson to get excited about photographing them. Studying turkeys through a telephoto lens is spellbinding and reveals details that go unnoticed when hunting.

“Killing turkeys is easy compared to photographing them,” I told Crowson. “What you learn from watching turkeys is an education few hunters know.”

When we returned, we set up in the same spot in the same blind with the same decoys. I had my long-lens camera, and I let Crowson borrow a 200 mm lens and camera, giving him a crash-course on operating it.

At first light two toms came in. It was too dark to photograph them, so we just watched. They stuck to the decoys, attacking them, gobbling, strutting, even spurring one another from time to time. Their antics attracted more toms. Over the course of the next four and a half hours, 11 big toms came to the decoys. Never were there less than four toms on the decoys at any given time. I snapped more than 1,800 photos. We saw several more toms hanging back, not wanting to approach the aggressive flurry of testosterone-fueled birds at the decoys.

Had Crowson and I been hunting that morning, we’d have been done in a couple minutes. Toting cameras instead of guns allowed us to see how many toms were really in the area and study their behavior for a long time. As a photographer, it never ceases to amaze me how much can be learned from animals when you’re not trying to kill them.

HEADING TO THE HILLS

Our third and final hunt found Crowson and I focused on the Cascade foothills. The hunt would take place between 500 and 2,500 feet of elevation, depending on where the birds were. I run trail cameras year-round in these hills for Roosevelt elk, black-tailed deer, predators and turkeys. Tom numbers are usually high early in the season, and then the gobblers disperse as hens go to nest. Later in the season toms normally return, and new ones often show up. Filling one tag at a time was doable, but we wanted to stick to our goal of pulling off our streak of doubles.

We increased the number of trail cameras and expanded their reach in an effort to locate birds. One day Crowson and I set more than a dozen trail cameras, mostly on deer and elk trails and along creek crossings in the hills. Every morning I scouted, as I lived close to the hunting locale; Crowson was nearly an hour’s drive away.

Three toms regularly popped up on multiple trail cameras, and I routinely saw them when scouting. These toms, however, were off-limits. I’d been watching the trio for four years, and they appeared to be the dominant breeding toms in the hills that spanned a 3-mile-long, 1-mile-wide ridge.

With only a few weeks left in the season, four new toms finally showed on one of the Moultrie Mobile cellular trail cameras we’d set. The first sighting appeared in the middle of the afternoon. Three hours later they popped up on another camera, more than a half mile away. That evening I went looking for them, hoping to put them to roost. I never saw or heard them. Nonetheless, the following morning Crowson and I were in the woods.

We carried the same two decoys but no blind. When hunting fresh birds in the hills I’ve had better success being mobile. This is especially true for birds that have yet to establish a routine. Many of these toms are moving through, hoping to find a receptive hen. Having the freedom to move with them greatly increases the chance of success.

Our first two setups didn’t raise a gobble. We kept working our way down the ridge. It was a warm, sunny morning, and we were in no hurry. Finally, a red-tailed hawk whistle I sent across the end of the ridge raised a shock gobble. Multiple toms answered, but how many, I wasn’t sure.

We closed the distance, set out the jake and hen decoys, then plopped against two fir trees, 10 yards apart. Getting Crowson a tom was top priority. “If you have a shot, take it when you can,” I told him. “I’ll bat cleanup, or we’ll go look for more birds.”

It didn’t take much coaxing to draw the toms in. They gobbled at every sound I made on a raspy Slayer Calls Black Batwing diaphragm call. This triple-reed call has brought in lots of big toms for me throughout the West over the past few seasons. The toms approached on a game trail in timber. They came in single file, heads glowing red and blue.

Crowson and I sat too far apart to talk. I was impressed that he didn’t shoot the first tom that came into range. Not until the last tom in line emerged did Crowson fire. I followed with an immediate shot. We’d just pulled off our triple-double.

“Thanks for waiting!” I said to Crowson, thumping him on the shoulder in congratulation as we approached the flopping toms.

“I wanted to make sure you had a chance to shoot,” he replied.

We’re on the same page many times when duck hunting together, but pulling it off in the turkey woods was different. I was proud of Crowson, and the fact the final hunt happened on my 60th birthday made the moment—and what we’d just achieved—that much more special.

We had tried pulling off a triple-double the spring prior but failed, most likely because I pushed too hard and bumped birds. I forced hunts instead of letting bird numbers, their position and their behaviors dictate when and where we should hunt. Turkeys can be gullible, but as is the case when calling any animal, they can’t always be coerced into responding when it’s convenient for us.

Turkeys play a big part in the development of many hunters. Even after 39 years I’m still learning the ways of these intriguing birds. I still make mistakes. I still overthink things. The birds still baffle me. Somehow, I manage to find a way to close the deal. I enjoy every moment spent in the spring turkey woods, something I look forward to with the coming of each season. There is no doubt that Crowson is just as hooked now, too.

---

• This article was featured in the April 2025 issue of Game & Fish magazine. Click to subscribe.

---