Well....here's the rest of the story.
When Laura and I built our house our goal was to landscape our 6 acres for wildlife. At that time there were no houses behind us...just several hundred acres of woods full of deer and turkeys. Now there are hundreds of houses but with some pressure from me and a few others we got the town and developer to hold a lot of the land for conservation easements. While deer numbers are down the turkeys have just taken over. Here is a typical front yard scene,,,,and each year for the last three years turkey numbers seem to be on the rise and our landscapeing, now being more mature and established seems to hold them.
I was excited about this Spring turkey hunt as this group of turkeys were frequent visitors all winter and into the early Spring. However, once the mating began, about a week before the season started, our sighting of birds became less frequent. I set up two DB blinds on the opposite side of our brook/pond as they seemed to like the edges I created there.
Once the season opened on May 3rd, it felt like deer season. Somehow they knew the hunting dates and times. You can only hunt until noon for Spring turkeys in NH and get only one tag. Bowhunters can get a Fall turkey tag. In addition, in the Spring you can hunt only until noon. We were still seeing birds but they were frequently showing up after lunch and unless I got up and out there in the dark they would already be where I should have been an hour ago. Two days ago I vowed to get up early but as i was getting out of bed I heard them gobbling already and as I was getting my gear and coffee mug together I looked across the pond only to see that they had beat me again.
We had two very large males and a jake that were showing up in the front yard on a regular basis for several days so i moved one of my blinds to the woods' edge on one of their approach routes. I knew if was not certain if they would actually come by that spot but I figured a hen decoy and some subtle calls would bring them in close enough. I got up at 4:30 AM on sunday, set up the decoy, got in the blind with my mug of coffee and sat and made a few yelps. Two hours later, when no birds showed up, I decided I needed to go in, refill the mug and help Laura get Amos and Elijah under control. They were spending the weekend with us and i promised Elijah I would show him how to fish in the pond.
Well, as I was sipping my coffee I glanced out the front window and recognized a trio of jakes coming thru the woods headed right for the bird feeders. Dammit...they were doing it again. I got Laura to come take a look and she reminded me that they often went from the front yard and would work there way across the pond near to my other blind. I had not taken off my hunting clothes yet so I grabbed my bow, arrows and slate call and managed to get to the other blind without being noticed. When I got there I realized I only had a jake decoy. However, I had seen this same group of jakes run off big toms by ganging up on them. So I set out the jake decoy, got in the blind, put on my black gloves and facemask and made a few subtle calls. Twenty minutes later nothing was happening. I had expected them to come my way thru the woods from in back of me. When I looked out towards the pond i could barely see them but three turkeys were under the feeder about 75 yards away. I had been looking the wrong way. I was not sure they could see my jake decoy so I picked up the slate call and made two very "quiet" clucks. Immediately all three of them looked my way and ran right to the decoy which was only 5 yards from the blind. As they approached I kept my eye on the larger of the birds. He only had a three inch beard but he was "genetically superior" to the other two in size and I decided he would be my target if he made it to the decoy. All three of them came in in a bunch and surrounded the decoy. I had to wait for one of them to move in order to get the shot at my preferred bird. Once in the clear the arrow was on its way. The white fletching disappeared just below the wing butt and and flopped out on the ground as they turned and went running. My bird only made it 20 yards and he just nose dived into the leaf litter.
Even though the hunt was not quite in the yard the birds were still challenging to hunt. After 12 days this was the first opportunity to present itself. The kill was quick and humane and both Amos and Elijah got a first hand experience about bow
hunting and where meat comes from.
Laura told me afterwards that instead of going up thru the woods the trio went around the house, down our driveway, thru our orchard, crossed the brook and came into the clearing on the opposite side i had expected them to. All in all it was a good day until it started to rain.
For those that are curious about my equipment I was shooting my DAS recurve with 55# Border limbs, Beman MFX skinny shafts and 250 grain Razorback broadheads. A few months ago i won a Tracker longbow from Stalker Bows. When the bow arrived i thought it looked like something was wrong with the lower limb. South Cox asked me to return it and he made me a new set of limbs and the bow arrived a week before turkey season. I had it set up pretty good until I tried shooting broadheads. Long story short....I need to work on tuning the bow some more. I had wanted to break it in on this turkey hunt. I am a recurve shooter and use a rest and plunger. The new longbow, being shot off the shelf...well, I just need to spend more time with it to get broadheads to shoot as well as I would like. We have woodchucks and foxes that need my attention so the Tracker will be put thru its paces.
Thanks for your interest in my experience. The best part was sharing it with Amos and Elijah and Nana Laura. It was good that I shot the turkey while they were spending the weekend with us. We don't want these boys to develop "nature deficit disorder" (they are city dwellers) so there is a lot of bows, arrows and fishing rods in their future. Elijah, in particular, made the connection between all the animals on my wall and the bows and arrows. He has his own bow and loves to shoot. Next Spring when he is able to sit I plan on having him with me when I make the shot. Right now he loves shooting frogs in the pond with his water pistol....it's a start.
By the way, when i checked the bird in at the checking station he weighed in at 17# and if I understood the fellow there it was the first bow killed turkey he had registered and even though it was Sunday and Saturday was a beautiful day it was the first bird they registered this weekend. I wonder where all the turkey hunters are?
Topic: NH Turkey success!!!!!! (Read 622 times)
