Instinctively, I keyed in on the strutting bird, and whispered to Scott to do likewise. What a show he put on. Maybe it was the novelty of having never hunted (or even seen) a Merriam's before, but I was entranced by his beauty, the stark white band contrasting sharply against his black tail feathers. Gradually, he made his way closer. Then, at the last possible instant, the other bird rushed in front, taking a more vulnerable position. "Switch to the other bird...the other bird!" I whispered to Scott,

In a lucky twist of fate, this Eastern, originally thought to be a bonus Osceola, was the keystone of the author’s turkey crossbow slam.

My pin settled on the bird's mid-section, and I shot. A fraction of a second later there was a loud thwack! and the bird faltered. A second shot secured him. I had my first Merriam's turkey, and three of my four grand-slam birds.

Almost Home
By mid-May, Ohio represented our last best option. Third-week birds can be tough, and this year we had an early spring. Breeding activity was winding down and the news from our host, Rex Redmond, didn't instill much confidence. Overall turkey numbers were way down from years past. And to add insult to injury, all of the "easy" birds had been killed off before we arrived.

Rex's nephew, Zach, figured our best odds would be a nearby field where he'd seen birds almost daily. The only males left were a couple jakes, which was fine with me at this point. But try as we might, we couldn't get a bearded bird near us the first two days.

Dawn of our final morning found us back on the jake hill. We closed in, and I was looking for the right set-up location, when Scott strongly suggested we move around and get above the birds. I reluctantly agreed, and it almost worked. Two hens came out of the woods and passed close by, but the gobblers stayed low, going right by the spot we had just abandoned.

With a little fight still in me, a $250 call to the airline bought me two more days. But day four went no better than the others. It was now do-or-die.

Weather-wise, the last day was the worst, with a steady, hard rain making things miserable. Given that, I opted for a long shot and set up in an enclosed shooting house Rex had in one of his pastures. I wish I could say that, right at the 11th hour, a big tom strolled in and helped us make history. It didn't. When my watch struck noon, Scott and I packed up our gear and silently headed down the hill back to camp. That flight from Ohio back to Maine seemed like the longest of the spring.

The Gift Horse
Several days later I was still licking my wounds and moping around the house when another bolt of inspiration hit me. I made a call to the NWTF and held my breath waiting for the response. "Yes." Because of the county in which it was taken, that second Florida bird was not an Osceola; it was an Eastern. I'd done it. That seemingly insignificant bonus bird had factored heavily. And that beautiful Merriam's completed not only my lifetime grand slam but the first officially recorded crossbow grand slam.