Tagged Out or Shooting Mailboxes
Saturday Morning, well before daybreak, I was slipping across a field to reach the blind I had set up the evening before where I had observed two gobblers hanging out. I set out two hen decoys and a jake decoy in front of the Ameristep blind and then I settled into the blind to wait for daylight. Daylight came rather uneventful, I didn’t hear any gobbling and nothing was responding to my calls.
About 8am I heard a gobbler off to my west he sounded like he was in the far field. He only sounded off a few times, with this tract of land being mostly agricultural fields with minimal woods it makes it hard for us to run and gun. There is 3 of us hunting this property which means we all need to stay in our spots so we don’t spook the birds off the property and on to neighboring lands or mess up each others hunts.
The wind picked up as the morning went on and I was regretting I didn’t use stakes to hold the blind down. Around 10 am or so one of the decoys blew over so I took the opportunity to stretch my legs a bit and fix the decoy. While standing amongst the decoys I caught movement off to the west and here comes a gobbler strutting on the other side of the farm road. I duck down and the slope of the land blocks both of our views and I hightailed it back to the blind. Shortly after that he came over the top of the hill but was angling across the field away from me. I tried calling to him with a glass call but it was not loud enough to reach him over the wind. I switched to a box call but to no avail as he walked away from me and into the small strip of woods on the far end of the field.
Shortly after that I succeed in reaching him with my box call and he gobbles at me. Over the next 3 hours he circles completely around me in the sliver of woods that surrounds the field. I never see him come out of the woods but he could have but with the wavy land it is possible he came out in places that were not visible.
A little after 2 pm I catch a glimpse of this turkey approaching from the same direction as he did earlier in the morning. This time I was ready and I caught his attention with my glass call. He started heading towards me. Once he caught sight of that hen that was making those sweet sounds he hit the accelerator and raced on in. He was doing a half strut as he came along and once he got close enough to catch sight of that Jake decoy he locked up about 55 yards out. What seemed like an eternity but was just a few minutes he hung in the high weeds with just his head sticking out. I switched to the opposite side of my Away Hunting Turkey Call that has a sweet slate call. Some soft purrs put him at ease and he came on in at a trot. Once he got up on the Jake decoy he ran around it and the stood off about 10 yards behind it. I had my gun up and was able to get the shot off dropping him where he stood.
I paced it off and it was 38 paces getting close to the end of the effective range of my turkey set up. I believe that the combination of the lateness of the turkey season as well as competition from other gobblers that made this guy so difficult to get to commit to my set up. He appears to be a rare 2 year bird given the bad couple of hatches we have had. 18 ½ lbs, 8 ½ inch beard and 1 inch spurs. It has been a few years since I filled all my turkey tags but my season is over with the tagging of a second bird. In my view if you want to be successful you need to adapt and consider using all legal methods to fill your tags. PS I was wearing my Lucky Moose Hat from Mace Sports
Read about My first turkey this season.
Congratulations on filling your tags. That’s got to feel good.
Comment by Kristine Shreve — May 6, 2008 @ 9:34 am
Congrats on a great season!
Comment by Rex — May 6, 2008 @ 12:55 pm
Nice! I’m sure it was the lucky hat that did the trick!
Comment by Tom Sorenson — May 6, 2008 @ 3:15 pm