Swimming Turkey!

Believe it or not, but I took that pic about 3 yeas ago and submitted it to a turkey hunting magazine author asking if he had ever seen or heard of a turkey swimming. I would never have thought it would resurface on this site....pretty cool. I was fishing on Norris when I took the pic. Still have the pic on my phone. Wish I had a video of it.
 
Mtn Hunter said:
Believe it or not, but I took that pic about 3 yeas ago and submitted it to a turkey hunting magazine author asking if he had ever seen or heard of a turkey swimming. I would never have thought it would resurface on this site....pretty cool. I was fishing on Norris when I took the pic. Still have the pic on my phone. Wish I had a video of it.
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Cool pic! What was the authors reply? Did they ever publish the pic in their magazine?
 
The author and I emailed back and forth a few times. He was amazed by the pic as well. He'd never seen one swim out in an open body of water but had seen and/or heard of them swimming across a slow moving creek or shallow cove in a lake. I'm unaware if they ever published the pic in a magazine.
 
The story behind the swimming turkey: a buddy and I were fishing one afternoon in early spring on Norris. I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye way up the bank. I glanced over and initially thought it was a goose flying across the lake (I was also looking right toward the sun). I did a double take and thought to myself that it looked a little big to be a goose and was flying different than a goose. About that time my buddy saw it and we both said at the same time, "is that a turkey flying?" Sure enough it was. As he was flying across the lake he stopped flapping his wings and just started sailing across. He stared getting lower and lower towards the water. About half way across the lake, he noes dived right in the middle of channel, completely under the water. We both couldn't believe our eyes. He resurfaced in a couple of seconds and began swimming in circles. He eventually started swimming in a straight line and was headed further away from the bank. This went on for about 10 minutes and then we decided to get a closer look. We eased the boat over to him and that's when I took the picture. He just kept swimming away from the boat. I thought he wouldn't make it to the bank with the wind current pushing him further out so I steered him with the boat toward the bank. I just used my trolling motor and would stay behind him to keep him heading toward the closet bank. After several minutes he made it. He was water logged and worn out. He could hardly make it up the bank. He fell down twice. He eventually made it up the bank to where a fallen tree was and just laid down in the tree top. We stuck around for a few minutes and watched. He never moved, so we just let him be. I don't know what that crazy bird was thinking. Like I said in an earlier post, I wish I had a video of the whole thing.....most people won't believe it. I'm just glad I got to witness such a rare thing out in nature. Believe it or not......
 
I'm glad someone posted this. I seen a hen swimming the Tennesse River one summer a couple years ago. I didn't tell many people that, they tend to look at me funny.
 

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