Turkey hunting part 2

[Supermag]

Well, Fridays hunts were pretty easy, so I guess we had to pay our dues on Saturday a bit.

We set up Saturday morning in a field that has had up to 27 turkeys spotted in it. We had scouted 8 birds in it the evening before, with 4 big toms. It turned out that the birds were roosted a lot farther away then we thought. They were in range of Luke's calls, but there was a hen that sounded pretty PO'd, and wasn't going to let things go our way.

We tried probably a dozen spots before we got a gobble in response to Luke's calls. When we did, we set up on the field edge, tucked in to a cool old cedar fence. The birds could hear us, but just weren't going to come out for a look at the dekes, so we went in after them. We had 3 or 4 birds gobbling back for a while, but they kept pacing back and forth, close, then backing away. Then, there must have been 8 different birds gobbling at us. The bush was super thick, with not too many shooting lanes. When the birds finally came close enough, I could see Kooz drawing a bead on one, but no kaboom.

I thought he maybe had some jakes, and didn't want to take them. I was watching my chosen shooting lane, when I saw the brightest red, white and blue head peek around a tree! It looked like there was a bulb in its head, it was that bright. Luke whispered "he's right in front of you". The tom stretchd his neck right up and cocked his head. He looked like he was going to spook, so I let him have it.

We worked those birds for probably an hour or more before they came in.


Now we needed to find a bird for Kooz. There sure weren't as many birds out in the fields as there were the day before. We went to some of Luke's walking spots, and walked kms of trails, stopping to call, but no gobbles. We saw a HUGE tom out strutting by himself in a field. We had to walk almost a half section to get up on him, but got busted by an unseen hen just as we were close enough to set up.

We kept trying, and found 3 toms working the top of a hill (again, a quarter away) and moved in to try to call them once they went behind the hill. No luck. They must have moved out of earshot.

Luke figured they were heading to the hardwoods, so we drove around to try and move in on them from the east. My boots had been rubbing my heels, and I was super bagged from our morning, so I wussed out and had a siesta in the truck while they went to give it a try. I had the window down and figured I'd hear if they shot.

I woke up to a thumping on the other window, and Luke holding up a great tom! I never heard a thing.





It was a blast! We're doing that again, that's for sure!!