Shaun, great to see you as well. Bwana was truly humbled by your gift. I just wish we both lived closer so we could keep encouraging him to shoot it.
Okay so back to Sunday.
After getting skunked in Nebraska ( how can you have 4 toms at 10 feet and not get a shot, but thats another story)
I got home , resorted my gear, stopped at the office and picked up a long , narrow box waiting for me and headed out. i had some work in East Iowa which allowed me one day at my farm on the way down. I spent just a little time shooting the new stick and readjusted the nocking point to my style of shooting.
I arrived at my hunt destination, caught up with Shaun Webb who was in town too picking up a deer mount and then headed to the timber with our good friend Bwana. Thursday's winds were out of the south and strong. The high was near 80 and the forecast for Friday even warmer. We set up two blinds in favored spots and headed to one all ready set. It was all ready 7 pm and the birds would be heading to roost soon. Bwana is not a traditionalist and we have different needs when it comes to shooting distances, so when we got to his blind i politely suggested we move down the ridge , closer to the roosting trees.
It only took a few minutes to reset our blind closer to the end of the ridge. We set out one hen decoy and ducked in the Double bull. It was windy and neither of us thought we would have much luck in the wind and heat.
I have a good friend who is a call maker and I was carrying one of his custom box calls. I suggested to Bwana we give a call. All most instantly we were answered by a faint gobble. "On the next ridge", said Bwana. Its too close to roosting time, he;ll never show, was my thought. I yelped again and he answered, and this time he was closer. Five minutes later I nudged Bwana and said " there he is, at the end of the ridge". Standing 30 yards away was a huge bird. Big even for Iowa. But he was not going to come any further. He was waiting for the hen to come to him.
Well, we played with that bird while several deer came up the ridge and nervously eyed our blind. Eventually the tom was walking towards us and we both thought it was going to be short hunt. But for what ever reason only he knows, the gobbler walked directly behind us and we did not dare try to open a rear window. He gobbled right behind us and both us also fell over laughing. Then another gobble split the air and we saw a second bird had come in on silent mode and was standing where the first bird originally appeared. Now it was really close to roost time and both birds both started to head to the trees. It wasn't long and we heard several birds fly up. Clearly other birds had come in which we had not seen. We were stuck. We whispered to each other and waited for the cover of darkness.
When enough time passed by, we slipped out of the blind, belly crawled over to the other side of the ridge and then hustled to the truck.
Repeating the procedure in reverse the next morning I slipped in to the blind, hopeful the birds would cooperate. Well they didn't. I heard them fly down and as they gobbled their heads off , the gobbles got fainter and fainter. About hour later I looked up from my book and had heart failure. A huge tom was strutting at the end of the ridge. How long had been there?. This time i had no decoy out and I gave few soft calls. A multitude of gobbles responded and THREE strutting Toms appeared. Now I had 100 pounds of turkey at 30 yards but still no movement which would yield a shot. They didn't strut long and walked off down the opposite side of the ridge. The rest of the day was uneventful.
The next day was windy , cold and rainy. A 40 degree turn about! By Saturday afternoon, I was cold and exhausted. I moved a blind for Sunday am and went to Bwana's house to shower and rest. The rain picked up and i never did go back out.
Sundays alarm at 4 am had me thinking about staying in bed. But it was my last day and I got my butt out of bed.
The dirt road had turned to mud and I had to 4 wheel it into the farm. The rain had stopped , but the resulting fog was so thick i had to stand by a familiar tree trunk and wait for enough day light to arrive so I could find my blind!
I set out one hen, and a jake. I use a jake tail from a kill a few years back and try to make it look like the jake is in full display. i've had great results with this set up in the past.
It wasn't very long and i heard my first gobble. Then another and another and still more. Suddenly to my left a Tom appears and is walking directly into the set. I had decided this year to try using the bullhead broad head and at six yards out I had a clear shot. I drew, anchored and forgot to make him stop. Clean miss, right behind his neck! He jumped out to ten yards and a two blade steel force whistled over his back!
Confused , he slowly made his was way off.
I looked out the front windows and saw several hens in the fog walking thru the milo stubble. Then gobbles broke out to my left. Forty yards out and just visible in the fog were two strutting birds. I yelped on the box and they gobbled hard. But they weren't moving just yet.
I picked up my slate and gave some fight purrs. Hoping they would think it was the jake. I got gobbles but not from them. Four more fans appeared straight ahead of me. Now I had six birds coming in. The two to the left decided to try and beat the new comers to the set and were coming in fast. As they came in side by side , I waited for their necks to separate and give me the shot I needed. My mind was saying neck, neck but its hard to teach an old dog new tricks. My subconscence said wing butt, wing butt.
The shot was perfect , had I not been shooting the bull heads.
BOINK was the sound of the bull head bouncing off the bigger birds wing.!! At the impact, both birds jumped straight up and turned a 180. Now facing the other way and only slightly further away. I picked a spot on the wing butt and let a 2 blade fly. The closer bird was dead on his feet as he made his final run for it. He made it 30 yards and piled up.
I used a Roy Hall Navajo Apache , Steel force Broad head and CX 150 heritage shafts. The bird was 23.5 lbs, had 1 &1/8 inch spurs and a short 4.5 inch beard!
Bwana grew up in Africa and said we should call the bow " Bahati" which translates to Lucky
Topic: gobbles in the fog (Read 741 times)
