We have no idea where she came from or how she found us, but a wild turkey hen simply walked into the yard of our ranch house in the brushlands of Webb County one day and adopted us. I named this bird “Mahonia.” I don’t recall why; that’s the scientific name of a prickly shrub common here in the Hill Country called “agarita.”

As one who takes a certain pride in eating whatever I shoot, I find myself on the horns of a dilemma relative to turkey gobblers. I am not necessarily a hunter of trophy turkeys, being willing to settle for whichever long-beard comes to the call. I also take pride, however, in fooling big old mature toms and generally give jakes a free pass.

Mind you, I am not claiming to have invented the turkey decoy, but I did carve a life-sized hen turkey from a block of Styrofoam before I ever saw a manufactured turkey decoy. And Delilah, as I named her, did lure a wild gobbler to my gun on her first outing, on the Nueces River a little downstream from Montel.

Much controversy exists about which type of gun is proper for spring gobbler hunting.