This note is really long, you can get a drink and sit back and read or you can skip to pictures at the bottom and figure out the end results.
I took Friday off to try and get a turkey with my bow. I scouted last Sunday afternoon and had the place picked out for my blind with the dead limbs cleared out of the way. Got to the woods at the perfect time with just barely enough light to see to walk in, about 5:25 am. Started setting up the blind and a bird started gobbling about 125-150 yards away. I tried to remain calm as I hurried to get things ready. I even took the time to cut a couple of small limbs with leaves and attach them to the top of the blind to break up the roof outline. I got everything set up with it still pretty dark in the blind. He had gobbled probably 20 times but had gotten quiet after flying down. I hit the mouth call with a few light yelps and he gobbled, game on. I called a few more times and he got closer, then a deer about 20 yards away snorted really loud about 3 times. I didn't call anymore. In about 10 minutes he gobbled still about 65 yards away and a jake half gobbled about 25 yards behind me. I called and I saw something running down through the woods between myself and the gobbler, that dang deer was vacating the premises. The bird never showed up or gobbled again. I figured it was time to shut up for a while and let things settle down. I pulled out my poptarts - breakfast of champions
, ate breakfast and drank the last half of my cup of coffee. I decided patience was the best policy so I sat back to enjoy the morning. About 30 minutes later he gobbled back where he started the morning. I yelped at him and he gobbled right back. I waited about 30 seconds and yelped a couple of more times. He gobbled again and had cut the distance in half to about 60 yards. I shut up and got the bow ready. He came in from the right about 35 yards out strutting and looking up the hill. I know he could see the hen and jake decoy but he just strutted and kept circling right to left. I yelped 3 times soft, he gobbled and turned and started strutting right in. He got to about 15 yards and just strutted back and forth spitting and drumming the whole time. He was only moving back and forth about 3 yards and every time he got to the right and turned I had a perfect straight on shot. I resisted the urge to take that shot. Patience, he will come closer. It took him about ten minutes to go from 15 yards to 11 yards. He never came out of strut. He apparently finally decided to approach the jake from the side and circled left behind a poplar tree. I was waiting when he came out and he was quartering slightly left. I aimed the right of his beard, let the bow settle and let the arrow fly. I saw the arrow go 6 inches left of where I was aiming and he jumped a little and then folded up and started walking away. I grabbed my second arrow and when I got it nocked he was walking left to right straight in front of me. I shot and heard the arrow strike wood and he started running back where he had come from. I gave it about 15 minutes and got out of the blind. I got to where he was standing and there were feathers laying on the ground. I picked up the arrow and there was absolutely nothing on it except dirt on the broadhead. Good, at least I just shaved some feathers. I noticed my string tracker line had slid to the back of the arrow and was stuck on the front of the feathers. Evidently in the dark I failed to get it secured properly under the broadhead. I don’t know if that changed my arrow flight or if I just choked. The shot actually felt good, in hindsight the only thing I felt a little uneasy about was I didn't let the bow settle quite as long as I like to but I didn't rush the shot either. I walked down to find my second arrow. In the excitement I might have slightly misjudged the distance of the bird on the second shot by something like 10 yards and the broadhead was stuck in a 2" dead limb that was laying right in front of the gobbler. "slightly" like they slightly misjudged the ability of the Titanic to handle icebergs. While recovering the second arrow I found the blood. The blood was before where I took the second shot and I know the second shot fell short of the bird. Dang, not a clean miss with the first shot which seemed very strange since the original arrow shaft was completely clean. Apparently a blade of the broadhead must have cut the bird and the dirt on the broadhead hid any sign. I reexamined it and there was nothing on it but dirt. I went back and packed up and by then it had been about 50 minutes so I went down and spent an hour looking in the first 30 yards or so from the 2nd arrow for more blood. Nothing, not a drop. I kept moving farther out and checking brush piles and blow downs as I went. I searched for 3.5 hours and never came up with anything. I hope it was just a slice on the breast and he lived. It seemed like quite a bit of blood to start with to not find any more but I couldn't. I'll go back in a couple of days to see if I can find anything else.
Friday afternoon I hunted another spot on a logging road with nada.
Saturday morning I got up prepared to go back to the first spot. I looked at the radar and it was hammering North of where I was headed and it looked like it was just going to sprinkle on me. They were calling for the main portion of the rain in the afternoon. I elected to walk in without rain gear since I figured I would get as wet from sweat with rain gear on as I would from the sprinkle. In hind sight that probably wasn't such a good decision. By the time I got in the woods the bottom fell out. It wasn't light enough to see so I sat down on my stool and waited 15 minutes for it to get light enough to set up my blind. It rained on and off until somewhere around 9, more on then off. After sitting there wet for a while it got rather chilly. About 8:30 I saw a turkey feeding along about 30 yards out so I yelped a few times, the bird answered and headed in. I just had one hen decoy out at 6 yards. It turned out to be a hen and she walked around the decoy and yelped and clucked a few times and then wandered off feeding. The rain had stopped so I moved to another location about 9:30 and stayed until noon but didn't see anything. I wimped out with the afternoon storms and turkey season closed with a wimper. I've seen many times when persistence pays off but that wasn't the case for these two days. Of course I would have only hunted one
morning if I had executed the shot. :(
I made the fan for the jake decoy, it folds in half and mounts to the stake with clamp to make transportation easier. He did his part on the hunt although I was surprised how long it took the mature bird to work towards him. Here are three pictures of different areas of blood,
the feathers which included a wing tip and some views of the jake decoy.
Net result - a few feathers to eat if you are really hungry and a couple of tough but great days in the woods. The deer antlers are just starting to branch and the box turtles were out after the rain on Saturday.
Doug
Topic: Last 2 days of Turkey Season (Read 389 times)
