I have been thinking long and hard about posting this but finally decided that maybe someone will learn something from it if I write about it.
I have been hunting turkeys pretty hard with the longbow for the last few years and have taken around 15 birds with it and quite a few before that with training wheels. I have lost one bird and that was just a bad shot.
Last Friday was the first morning I got out and had a great morning in CT. I called in and passed 3 Jakes under 5 yards and had 6 long beards that hung up at 30 yards. I even called in a hen and had her so fired up she was strutting around my decoy for 25 minutes.
I went back on Saturday and set up in a slightly different spot. There were birds literally all around me. Just after fly down I had birds heading right at me from every direction. The first bird to give me a shot was a Jake at 5 yards. I drew, picked a spot and released. My arrow hit right where I was looking and the bird flopped over a few times and got to his feet and took off running. I could see half my arrow hanging out of both sides of him in a great spot. Just before he headed into an over grown field I could see him starting to "lean" and lose steam. I knew I smoked him.
I turned back around and the Jakes were moving away from the blind as a large Tom stepped out at 10yds, slightly quartering away. I nocked another arrow and hit him right where I was aiming. He flopped around, ran a few yards, again with the arrow hanging out both sides, opened his wings and jumped off the edge of a cliff I was set up near. I knew it was a great shot and wasn't too concerned. I still had birds around me, but I didn't want to use my last tag so quickly. I just let the birds walk off. I looked down and it was 6:15 am and I had called in 8 Toms and 10 Jakes all to under 20yds and had 2 down. I was pumped.
I went to recover the jake first. I thought it would be easy. I know I hit the bird very well. After an hour of grid searching the brushy field i woke up my buddy who lives there. Even with his help we could not find him.
We took a break and went to recover the Tom. Now I realized the trouble I was in. I had no idea which way he glided when he jumped off the cliff. Below is a 30 acre or so over grown field with only a few mowed spots, the rest was brush, cattails and skunk cabbage......all at least knee high. I killed a Tom on that cliff a few falls ago and even with a perfect shot the bird glided over 200 yards before folding and crashing to the ground. The difference was that I saw him hit the ground...
The bottom line is that after 5 hours of searching for the 2 birds I know I killed, we found neither. Because of the circumstances and terrain I just couldn't find them, even though I know they couldn't be all that far.
I haven't even been able to think about going back out hunting, until yesterday. Normally if I made a bad shot or lost an animal i would go home and practice with a vengeance and make sure I picked a spot. In this case I felt helpless, i hit where I wanted with a razor sharp head and well tuned arrow. I has really been eating at me. I decided to try using a string tracker to help prevent this in the future. I called Guru and he was very encouraging and gave me a few tips of using the string tracker. Pretty much the same advise he has in the "How To" section. I built a bracket for it and set it up. I can't see any difference if POI at 20yds with broad heads. I will be back out there later in the week with a bit more confidence.
I never really thought about a string tracker and never had any problem recovering turkeys before, I guess I was just lucky, or maybe just unlucky this week. Either way, if you are chasing turkeys with the bow I'd strongly consider checking one out.
Topic: Turkey Nightmare (Read 441 times)
