Nephew's first time Turkey Hunt
No photos, but had to relay the experience I had this morning taking my guy Wes and his cousin, my nephew, Jack, out for a late season turkey hunt. Of course, the Wes and I are tagged out but Jack wanted to try his luck so got his own tag and out we were going.
Up at 4 like troopers and head for our spot. We've been seeing birds around this farm all season, but just not able to connect yet. We were hoping that this morning we could get Jack on a bird for his first.
Morning started out real quiet, walked by a grove of lilacs in full bloom. Had to stop the boys to take a moment to take in that fragrance.....Hope to take that with me forever, stop and smell the flowers right?
We get into our spot, set up the blind, and honest to God, should do a Thermacell commercial. The hordes were coming in through the open window of the blind by the bucket, while I tried to get my older Thermacell fired up....Once it got going though, they went pouring back out....I'm sure they'll come out in a few years and tell me that I'm going to die early from the exposure to whatever that magic mist is, but frankly, I don't care. So, now the boys and I are bug free and just watching the night slowly turn to dawn. Beginning to think the birds have gone quiet when to the north of us, we hear a distant gobble, then another, and another.
The boys are getting pretty excited, I give a few tree clucks on the slate and the birds are answering back. Not wanting to overdue, I slow down on the calling to not calling at all. The birds and their gobbles get more infrequent until they go silent...So, I'm thinking on the ground with hens and they've moved off, but tell the guys to sit tight a little longer. About 715, we hear some cackling and 3 hens fly out of the woodline into the field about where we were hearing the gobbling coming from. It's a few hundred yards off, so we keep watching the show. Then out come a couple of what we determine were Jakes and then the Big Boy comes out...Monster Tom and he's looking our way....I tell Jack to get ready as it may be quick and he whispers over that he's shaking. Glad I packed a shooting stick. So, after looking our way for a bit, the Big Boy decides he likes his real hens better than our fake one and the Jake decoy we have with her. I try some yelps and purrs to no avail...Those hussy hens pull him away and out of sight. The guys are disappointed.
I decide you know what, nothing to lose, I'll go see where they've gone, so I hop out of the blind and using the tree islands as cover, try to get where they were, sure enough, they all had set up just out of sight of where we were....I hustle back to get my shooter and by the time I get back they had jumped to another island a little further and a whole lot less cover to use. But what, I found the tail that comes with the strutter B-mobile in my pack so I pull it out and the two of us hide behind it as well as we could and move as slowly and stealthily as we could. We were almost where we could do something when 2 hussy hens moved up on to a knoll further away where they could see us and the fan. They didn't seem to spook but did move off and took the whole pack with them. We watched them go from there, there was no cover between us and them where they were and we decided better to let them go quietly and play again tomorrow on the last day.
We got back to where we had left Wes and he gave us the play by play of their movements as we were moving, he got to see it all.
So, no birds were harmed this morning, as much as we tried.....
Game plan tomorrow though, Wes has to stay home for school so it'll be just the Jack and I. I'm planning on ditching the decoys and no calling, we'll set up on the last island and hope they'll want to move by it again tomorrow. Of course, the devils will likely roost elsewhere, but I'm hoping that by not chasing them too aggressively or shooting at them, they won't be too spooked and will just go back to their roost again tomorrow and we'll be waiting.
Regardless of the outcome, a great hunt with my boy and nephew, a morning well worth getting up at 4 for....new turkey hunter indoctrinated....
TurkeyJohn
