My quest for a Turkey with traditional equipment was fulfilled Sat. morning.
23lbs........10 1/4" Beard............1 1/4" & 1 3/16" Spurs
I had been into birds all week, but nothing close enough for me with my recurve. Friday morning my friend Bob and I had two real nice Tom's with four hens around us all morning.........they didn't want anything to do with decoys or any calling. So Sat. morning we located some roosted Tom's and set-up my double bull blind. The weather turned really crappy with the wind and rain, but we planned on staying out the whole day if we had to.
About 9:30 we had a lone hen walk through and we could hear a few gobbles behind us on the ridge.......that morning the birds came off roost a flew the wrong way? Like usual!
We had been passing the time sharing past memories of other hunts.......when Bob whispered that he thought that he heard a strutting tom outside the blind behind me! I peeked through a crack in the blind and sure enough :eek: he was only 8 feet from me!
I grabbed my 52# RER recurve, nocked an arrow and quickly got prepared for the shot. Bob wanted to turn on the video camera, but I wouldn't let him, for fear the sound of the camera starting up would spook him. He walked out in front of the blind at 8yds and I drew, picked a spot and came to anchor for about 2 seconds and released....the arrow disappeared though the bird and we agreed the shot looked good!! We waited 1 hour before getting out of the blind to take up the search. We had several periods of hard rain during that hour wait. We looked at the last place we had seen the tom disappear over the rise, we found blood on and game trail but no bird? I was starting to get worried that we wouldn't find him. I found more blood 15 - 20 yds away from the first blood and a spot were he had laid down, now I was getting worried I would loose this bird.
I decided that I would go back to my house and get my hunting buddy....Amos my Springer Spaniel. So a short while latter I am back with Amos and put him on the trail. He worked the area that I had found last blood, but he didn't seem real hot, I was pretty sure a lot of the scent has been washed away. He went behind us to the north along the edge of a cattail swamp 20yds away. Bob shouted that Amos was looking birdie!!
Just like that out from under a clump of dogwood came the Tom! After a short chase through two feet of water and cattails Amos had him pinned to the ground. The bird was almost dead, but had enough left in him to make a final lunge.
Thanks to a two great friends(Amos and Bob!) I was able to recover this bird. The shot ended up just knicking the chest cavity with one blade of my Woodsmen head. What an Awesome hunt! I would have never found that bird had it not been for Amos! I was in tears when I saw he was standing in the swamp with my bird pinned down for me. Needless to say I want one happy bowhunter! Now I have to help Bob get his bird next week, then I have another tag and I'll see if I can do it again.
Topic: My First Trad Turkey! (Read 698 times)
