The morning of this last hunt, I was headed to a spot I had found a lot of turkey poop, some dusting spots and tracks along the edge of a corn field. To be honest, about 3 hours in a pop up blind is all I can stand, so I decided to be set up by 8 a.m., as I thought late morning might be the best time to hunt this spot.
As I walked down the farm path at about 7:30 a.m., and peeked over the hill to check my field for turkeys I spotted a hen already in the field. I stood there for a few minutes watching her and hoping she would feed on away so I could set up where I wanted to in the field edge, but shortly I spotted a gobbler strutting in the field too....
I backed down the path a little ways and set up my blind right in the farm path, as quietly as I could. I didn't really like this spot as a gobbler would have to be right on me to see my decoys, and I like to set up where the gobbler can see the decoys at a distance, in order to be distracted by the decoys as soon as possible..After getting the blind up I peeked over the hill again and the turkeys were out of sight so I picked up the blind and walked a little closer to the field with it, so I could set up on a hill.
Once I got everything set up I started calling with my box call. Its an old P.S. Olt call I bought as a kid over 45 years ago. We didn't have any turkeys back then in my area, but I bought it in the hopes that one day I would be able to turkey hunt, and besides it just looked cool to me.....
I heard gobbling off in the distance as soon as I hit the call....I also added a cackle with my slate call to try and excite the gobbler more...I don't call much but every time I yelped with the box call the gobbler would respond and was getting closer...
I figured the gobbler would come in from the field and walk down the farm path to my decoys, but all of a sudden he came out of the woods 15 yards from my blind and eyeing the decoys with a fight in mind.....He circled around behind the Jake decoy and came right up to it at 6 steps from my blind. I prefer to neck shoot a gobbler with a broadhead made for that and had practiced all month and could wear out a paper towel tube at 10 yards. I figured if I could hit that then a turkeys neck would be no problem....The problem was I had raised the bottom of my window just a little when I set up because the decoys were slightly higher than the spot I had the blind....
As the gobbler focused on the Jake I picked a spot on his neck and let it fly...WHACK....and the arrow was laying on the ground at the gobblers feet....What the heck happened? I felt like my bow tip had hit something but could not believe it....I keep a backup arrow laying by my chair with a VPA 3 blade for follow up and now I picked it up and put it on the string as the gobbler jumped back about 10 yards but then started back to the decoys....Boy was that a mistake....Here is what happened on the first shot...One of the blades on that big neck shooter broadhead snagged the bottom of the blind window...
Topic: Gobbler down! My story..... (Read 1435 times)
