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What a Week

bowhunterfanatic

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I've been fortunate this year to have a good number of birds to hunt on one of my spots. Spent opening week getting my tail kicked as well as making a couple of rookie mistakes that cost me an easy kill. Was out of town this past Sunday and Monday and was too exhausted to get up Tuesday morning. Got off work Tuesday evening and went and checked one of the fields where I'd been getting my tail kicked. The group of gobblers I'd been chasing was in the field and I knew exactly where they'd try and roost. Got set up between the birds and their roost and called just enough to make them curious. They worked right to me and I killed number one for the year. He was a triple bearded 2 year old.



Before I could even get out of the field one of his buddies flew up to the top of the ridge and started gobbling pretty good on the roost. I had planned on letting them rest for a few days but as hot as he was after flying up I knew he'd be killable the next morning. I got back in there early Wednesday morning and he started gobbling early and often. I set up just off the side of the highest point on the ridge about 80 yards from him. I tree yelped to him twice around 6:10 just to try and make sure he didn't pitch all the way down the ridge into the field. He didn't cut me off but he liked what he heard. As soon as it got light enough I thought he might come down I took my hat and beat it against my leg a few times and hit him with some excited calling. I caught a glimpse of him pitching out of the tree and thought he went the other way. He must've turned in the air after I lost sight of him because in under 60 seconds he was standing on the top lip of the ridge maybe 30 yards to my left. He went behind a big white oak and I eased my gun up and waited for his head to appear from behind the tree. He was dead by 6:20, by far the fastest I've ever killed one off the roost. He was just an average 2 year old bird.



I didn't hunt Thursday morning to try and get an extra hour or two of sleep before work and to let my little girl do the same. Yesterday afternoon when I picked her up from my mom's we rode out to a small piece of property my family owns to look for turkeys with our "nocklers". I knew there were a couple gobblers in the area but waiting a couple weeks before trying to kill one to make sure some of our hens got bred, as the population in the area is a fraction of what it once was. Most of that can be attributed to habitat loss but that probably isn't the only factor. It was really windy so I just drove all the way up the powerline in my truck to our small field. I didn't see any birds so I pulled into the field to turn around and only then did notice 6 turkeys running across the field to my left. Everything on the backside of the field is now cutover, so I knew the birds wouldn't go far and should be roosted on the field edge this morning. I sat in the truck too long this morning trying to let the rain pass, so by the time I got to the top of the powerline I was afraid to cross the field to get to my intended destination. I put a single hen decoy out and took a seat. The woods were nearly silent this morning and after waiting what seemed like forever he finally gobbled twice on the roost. I called just a little bit and after getting no response I just put the call up. I waited until 6:40 and after not seeing any birds fly down or hearing anymore gobbling I walked out into the field and retrieved my decoy. I figured I'd just have to try them another day since I needed to be back to the truck by 7:35 at the latest, but just out of curiosity I circled the field and went 200 or so yards and got directly across the field from where they were roosted. I broke out my cheap old trusty slate and yelped a few times with no response. At this point I decided they must've seen me putting my decoy out this morning and flown down into the cutover going the other way. I started to put my call up when out of the corner of my eye I spotted a fan just over the rise in the field maybe 100 yards from me. At this point I really felt like an idiot, because I knew the birds had been in the low spot in the field the entire time and my impatience had once again gotten the best of me. The 4 hens were headed right towards my original setup but I didn't think I could make it back to there without getting spotted. I sat down on the backside of a pine tree and started clucking and purring on my slate hoping maybe his hens might come take a look. To my surprise one of them finally talked back a little. After a few more minutes of silence I started trying to ease up behind the pine to get a better look and I'll be dang if the 2 gobblers weren't making a B line right to me. I eased my gun up and clicked the safety off just waiting on one of them to clear the tree in front of me and give me a shot. Somehow I hadn't noticed the hens coming as well and the first turkey to clear the tree was a hen. At that point she was maybe 10 yards and it was wide open between the two of us. She got uneasy and cut out headed to my right and the other 3 hens followed her lead. Luckily for me the gobblers just started putting but weren't quite ready to leave. I eased my gun down and got it around the right side of the tree and found a tiny hole in the cedar in front of me and just waited for a head to appear in the hole. It appeared and I pulled the trigger. This was an older bird than the first two. He had fairly sharp 1 1/8 inch spurs.



It absolutely amazes me how one week I can't do anything right and the next week I can seem to do no wrong. Just one of the many reasons I love chasing these birds. Also, if nothing changes I don't think I'll have to worry about not having a hunting buddy in 6-7 more years. She's been all about turkeys the last couple weeks.
 
Congrats buddy that's a heck of a week! Ain't nothing like them little girls either
 
Wow, what a week! Birds 1 and 2 came within 30 min of hunting time between the two it sounds like.

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