I've got an odd internal clock. I'll almost always wake up a few minutes before the alarm goes off... it the clock is set correctly.
The next morning was just like that. When I awoke I pulled the little travel alarm down off the bed post and squinted hard in the dark to see the tiny hands.
I had 3 minutes before the alarm sounded. I pushed the button and got up.
Soon I was standing on the front porch gazing at the cloudless sky. The wind was blowing, but not bad compared to what it had been.
YEP!!! I went back in to turn on the coffee maker. I'd be hunting this morning.
I was back in the blind plenty early. I'd stripped all non essential items from my pack and left the little heater in the truck.
When it was time to leave I'd get out of there without hauling a ton of gear and with luck have room in the pack for a turkey.
The last two mornings I'd listen to the birds gobble on the roost and then move slowly off in the opposite direction after fly down. I thought that it was about time that they fed off in my direction.
I did my best tree calls and when I thought it was about time did a fly down cackle and some light yelping.
It wasn't long and I could hear turkey talk and it seemed to be getting closer.
Soon I had hens approaching and they seemed to come out of the timber forever. I counted twenty in the end and not a beard in the bunch.
I'd seen a bearded hen a couple days prior and I'd have shot her in a heart beat if she'd have shown up... she didn't.
As the last hen fed out of sight I sat back to relax a little. I'd refined my set up so that I had the window open for a full 180 degrees, but kept most of that covered with the netting. Only a small slit was kept open that would give me clear shot out front.
Brush and trees made shooting to the sides nearly impossible anyway.
It was inevitable that time would pass way too quickly this morning. That's how it goes for me. The last day just seems to fly by and the more I wanted it to drag on the faster it seems to go.
I looked down at my watch and forty five minutes had gone by since the hens had visited. As I looked up I could see the head of a turkey moving just beyond a strip of burr oaks headed my way. Soon it was joined by 4 others. Here we go!!
As they came into the open I thought they looked too big to be hens and the colors were darker than the hens. It had been a little hard for me to tell at the beginning of the hunt. These turkeys were pretty heavilly hybridized. Some looked like easterns and others had a more bronze look to them.
Staring hard I wished I had my binoculars with me, but I'd jetisoned those from the pack. It took a while but soon I could see short little beards sticking out high on the chest of each bird....JAKES!!!
"That will do", I thought to myself. Heaven knows I'm not a true trophy hunter and especially not for turkeys. Maybe another time, but not now. Not here.
I picked up my call and did a short series of very soft yelps. They angled my way.
All five of those jakes ended up 12 yards in front of my blind and one was dead center in the middle of my shooting lane.
As if on cue he turned to walk away.
The Carbonwood shaft slid silently across the velcro and I buried into anchor as I held for an instant at the top of his drum stick.
When I shoot at game I never seem to consciously release. The string just slips away when the shot is lined up and pointed at the spot I want to hit. That is exactly the way it happened this time.
Once again the arrow flashed out of the blind trailing string which flowed effortlessly from it's spool. (I'd replaced the light orange line with the white thirty pound stuff earlier in the hunt)
Once again all was confusion with birds going in every direction. Mine went almost straight away, my arrow buried half it's length in him.
Almost immediately he was airborne, climbing high into the wind which had gotten stronger with each minute as the morning passed.
Just when I thought he would fly off over the tree tops beyond the food plot, he started swinging back around still climbing. I watched in awe as the white string trailed through the air behind him.
Finally he disappeared off to my left where the blind was tightly buttoned down. At almost the same moment the string stopped ripping out of the holder.
DANG!!! That was either really good news or really bad, but I wasn't going to rush anything and give the big Magnus time to do it's stuff if it needed it.... it didn't!!
After fifteen minutes I got out of the blind and could see the jake immediately. He'd piled up right in the same tree line my blind was in.
As I retrieved my prize I said a little prayer of thanks over him as is my habit. By the time I got around to the picture taking the wind had reached gail force and it was snowing.
Was it really that cold out that I was shaking so badly. Maybe it was... only I know for sure.
Topic: And the wind cried.... Turkey! (Read 30432 times)
