Turkey season started off with a thud for us in Eastern Montana. Very few birds on our farm (at least compared to last year) and it seems the rut is slow getting started. Also, it got up to 75 degrees which I think slowed things down.
We called in a few birds but really only three or four toms. We were set up on the edge of a wheat field with our blind backed up to some cottonwoods. On my third afternoon we called around 5:30 and got an immediate hen response behind us, on the other side of a slough. Soon we could see several hens and a strutting Tom on the edge of another wooded area. With just a few calls we got them to fly over the slough and enter the field 50 yards north of our decoys.
Sorry about the photo quality - shot through the screen.
The Tom was strutting his stuff but not belligerent enough to come in to the Jake plus two-hen setup we had. At 40 yards my partner (who shall go nameless because Dale wouldn’t want me to embarrass him) said, “He’s not getting any closer…I’m going to shoot.” I told him to let me try to get him in a little more, although I’ve seen him make that shot many times on deer and elk. We maybe got him to 35 yards when the first arrow was loosed. Took out a tail feather and the gobbler jumped forward, but didn’t bolt. Arrow two hit an inch low. Tom moved out to about 40 yards and was in my window so I grabbed my recurve (62# Dale Dye) and let fly with a Snuffer tipped arrow.
I have spent hours sitting and kneeling this year practicing at 30-40 yards, feeling it would help me make 15 yard shots, which is more like what we normally have. Anyway, the Tom made one circle in the air and flopped around for maybe 10 seconds and that was it. The Snuffer entered on the left side just behind the thigh and exited through the right wing root, taking out the liver and lungs.
The best part of the whole deal was that my son (37 years old and on his first turkey hunt) was up in our cabin, which can be seen in one of the photos, watching through a spotting scope and caught all the action.
I give Dale Dye a lot of grief but he has been my mentor and my pal for 25 years. He was very congratulatory about my shot and I told him he’d dialed the coordinates in for me in by putting one above and one below the old bird. He’s killed more game with a recurve than I’ve shot at.
Dale's Trophy
We also found some dandy sheds in our off time, although the guy who farms our place for us has a local pick the fields clean ($1,000 per tire punctured by tines) prior to planting. Interestingly, in one field that held corn last year the guy found 30 shed antlers. The field is only 40 acres! I took a picture of the ones we found in the river bottom.
Topic: Eastern MT turkey (Read 323 times)
