First full turkey season-Success!

[pdk25]

Last year was my first year turkey hunting with a bow, and I got out twice toward the end of the season due to work constraints.  This year, I was determined to make it a priority to get out as often as I could to try and score a bird.  I should start off by saying that I didn't really know anything about turkey hunting.  I grew up hunting deer in Pennsylvania, but Dad wasn't a turkey hunter, so neither was I.  I still don't know much, but I sure wasn't bashful about picking Dave Sisamis's brain for information, both before and after hunts.  Don't think I could have done it without him.

I wasn't really sure how to proceed with this thread, but there are some amusing stories that probably will best be told toward the beginning.

Shortly before the beginning of turkey season, I setup my wife's Barronett 350 blind along a trail that I had been seeing a set of turkey tracks.  As I was setting it up, I asked my wife if she could see me inside of the blind through the mesh, and the answer was an emphatic 'yes'. My pale complexion and red shirt showed up very well, so I decided I needed to get some black stuff to hunt with.  I looked all through my clothes and all I could find was a black t-shirt.  I needed to find a solution for my arms, hands and head.  Since the season was starting in a couple of days, I was off to Wal-mart to see if I could find a black balaclava and long sleeved shirt.  I was pretty surprised, and was a little desperate.  As I was passing through the aisles, something in the womens department caught my eye.  Leggings, and they were on sale!  I would give it a try.  I picked up a pair of black leggings and headed home to try them out.  I cut the legs off to use as sleeves and cut finger holes so most of my hands could be covered.  Then I used the crotch section for my head covering. 'insert laughter here'.  My wife thougth that this was pretty funny and took a picture.  I will try to upload it later.

I decided that this was pretty warm and I didn't want to sweat my butt off, so the next day after work I swung by wally world, and got a pair of 'seasonless leggings' that were much lighter in weight.  On the way home, I had to swing by Tractor Supply to pick up some stuff, but couldn't wait until I got home to try the stuff out.  This time I cut the legs like before, but the crotch was still too heavy, so I cut a portion of the legs that was excess to use for a head covering.  So I am in my car in the parking lot with this pulled over my head, with my nose pretty smashed down and I notice a couple walking by the car toward the store talking and pointing at me.  They then pulled out a cell phone and starting calling someone, all the while looking at me.  I realized that I must look like someone who is about to rob the store, so at that point, I decided maybe the stuff that I needed could wait until another day and I left for home.  Ironically, I ended up using a dark pattern of camo, and never used my pantyhose ninja suit.

[pdk25]

I will be back in a bit to finish up, but I just got summoned for some chores.

[rwbowman]

This is good already, but keep it coming!!

[pdk25]

The first time that I went out hunting, I didn't see or hear anything, but figured as soon as the grasshoppers got going I would start seeing something.  I was right, and the next time I went out I had high hopes.  Here are a couple of pics of the blind with my decoys.

 
 
 

This was an evening hunt and I no sooner got in the blind as setup and gave a yelp that I heard gobbling from around 100 yards away.  I was pretty excited and texting Dave throughout most of the hunt.  A group of birds were coming but saw my decoys and gave them a wide birth.  Probably went back and forth calling for 45 minutes, and eventually that heading toward a roosting area.  I snuck out of the blind and grabbed the thunder chicken decoy, since I figured it was spooking the birds and headed back into the blind.  Nothing for a half hour or so, but then I gave a yelp and heard a cluck from close to the blind.  It was getting dusky and through the mesh I saw a bird go toward my decoy that I didn't see a beard on.  I started trying to take a pic with my cell phone, but it took me awhile to figure it out.  At one point the bird was only 6 yards away.  I took a pic of my hen and sent it to Dave, and the bird moved off.  I didn't hear anything more, and figured I would enlarge the pic to have a better look.  Here are the pics.

 
 

Yes, I am an idiot

[toehead]

     
Make sure you get the control top next time brotha!

[T-Bowhunter]

Sounds like a fun time,.    

[pdk25]

Even though it is much prettier now with more green in the fields, I thought it was kind of pretty on my way home, so I took some pics from the walk.

 

 

 

 

 


So the next chance I get to hunt is on the weekend, but I have to work, so I go in to work at 3 am to get a couple hours of work in, then head home at out to the blind.  I am a little later getting out there, but I hear gobbling all over the place.  I am not in my blind very long when a group of Jakes come down the lane toward my blind, gobbling the whole time.  The are straight across from me, around 15 yards out, and start heading right at my hen decoy.  I really am pretty certain that they are coming in for a close shot, but they angle off to my right and hang up around 20-25 yards away behind cover.  They are gobbling their fool heads off trying to get my hen to come to them, but I can't entice them to come in.  Here, I made some major tactical mistakes.  I should probably have taken the 15 yard shot that I had rather than getting greedy, and I definitely called to much when they were close.  I think that eventually they figured out the sounds were coming from the blind, rather than the hen decoy.  That was pretty much the end of that days hunt.

I went in to work a little before 2 am the next day, so I could get out in the woods a little earlier.  I was there in plenty of time, but the only sounds that I heard were pretty distant gobbling.  I knew that I had work stacked up for me, so I headed back to the house pretty early.  Another mistake.  There was a small flock in the ryegrass field just to my south that scattered as I was making my way home.  I changed my blind location to the south edge of that field that afternoon before I headed back in to work.

[pdk25]

I headed back out to the blind that same evening after doing a couple more hours of work, and I saw one hen at the north edge of the field that by the sounds of it met up with some other turkeys and headed to roost just in the woods to the west.  When I got home from work the next day, I snuck through the woods to set up a different portable blind in the NW corner of the rye field where I thought they would be heading again.  Unfortunately, there were some turkeys already in the field that spooked out of there when I got there, but I figured that I would see what happens, and set up the blind anyway.  

Maybe a half hour later, the same group of 4 Jakes came into the field from near where they left, along with 3 hens.  They were in the field for around an hour and a half eating grasshoppers, but I could't get them to come any closer.  THe Jakes were just bird-dogging the hens.  Every once in awhile they would strut or gobble, but the closest they got was 20 yards away on the move, until I thought they had left the field for good.  I was wrong, and they were in a little elbow of the field, and the hens moved through the woods toward the blind an the Jakes followed.  I guess the Jakes figured they would get a better look at my decoy, but wouldn't come closer than 15 yards.  The biggest looked like he would come all of the way and, again, I really thought that I would get a shot.  Unfortunately he stopped where I couldn't get a shot through the slit in the blind.  If I had that window open just a couple more inches I could have, but I didn't dare risk it when he was that close.  Still pretty exciting, though.

Here is a picture of the Jakes in the field, and on when they crossed 20 yards in front of me.

 

 

[pdk25]

The next couple of days I had been seeing turkey a few hundred yards north of my house, and I was planning on setting my blind up there but didn't know how to do it without spooking the turkeys.  When I got home from work and put my chickens one day, I saw the turkeys were there again.  I circled around to the east so as not to spook them and sat in the blind on the south of the rye field.  I waited maybe a half hour and a flock with the 4 Jakes and several hens came into the field from my southwest, probably the same turkeys that I had avoided spooking. I had and avian-X LCD breeder hen and a Dakota extreme Jake decoy setup next to it.  When the hens saw the setup, half of them scooted out of the field to the south, and the others hugged the west border and came nowhere near me, heading to the roost.  Crap!  These looked like a couple of the best decoys on the market to me.  I heard some gobbling further to the North, and decided that was where I would try my next hunt.

[pdk25]

I had a 3 day weekend, and was expecting a friend to come over and call for me, but his schedule wouldn't allow it, so I headed out to hunt friday morning in the sand plum thicket to the north of the ryegrass field. It was overcast, and for awhile I didn't hear anything but remote gobbling to my south, but later on I heard gobbling close by and maybe 60 yards away on the road that I walked in on a large Tom showed up, gobbling away.  Probably an 8-9 inch beard and head the color of a cardinal.  He saw my decoy and wanted to come in, but he also so my blind and was wary of it.  It is frequently pretty winding here in Oklahoma, and I could tell the blind was blowing pretty good in the wind.  He circled around the decoy in the cover of the sand plums and stayed in the area for 45 minutes or so.  I only called when he sounded like he was moving away.  Most of the times all I could see was his bright red head through the cover, but he would occasionally get right on the edge of stepping out 15 yards away, but each time he strutted away.  My eyes were getting tired and I decided to close my eyes and just call when he went further away.  He stopped calling and after awhile I opened my eyes and there he was, 16 yards away pecking at grass!  I quickly drew back, and as he turned broadside I let the arrow go.  He was so close and it happened so fast, that I couldn't really see the arrow flight.  I just remember my friends telling me to aim just above the legs.  The Tom flew straight up, then came down around 20 yards to the south in cover, but I was pretty sure that I hit him, just a little low.  The arrow had stopped just past the turkey, and it looked like blood on the fletching. I texted my Dave and my friend Dustin.  After giving it some time, I headed out to look for the bird.  I couldn't believe it when I got to the arrow.  Nothing.  What I thought was red blood was nothing but purple from the fletching.  A clean miss.  Awesome, I had somehow missed the entire bird at that distance.  Whether it was that I rushed the shot, the motion of the bird, or that I dropped my bow arm, I don't know.  All I know is that I choked.  Bad weather rolled in, so I didn't get to hunt friday evening or saturday morning.  I told Dustin that I was seeing turkeys and invited him up to hunt saturday afternoon with me.

[Dirtybird]

This is a pretty good season for a "rookie" turkey hunter.  Some of the most fun in the woods you will ever have is chasing turkeys around.IMO  Pat has the luxury of hunting close by and being able to keep an eye out and scout so to speak.  Can't wait to hear the rest of the story.

[Wannabe1]

Great story and pics! Glad you were able to get out more this time.  

[Mike Gerardi]

TOLD YA! And Dave and I never made any comments about not knowing a hen from a gobbler...  

[pdk25]

I deserved any and all comments.  Should be home in a little bit to finish the story.

[Knawbone]

Great story, sounds like your learning a lot about bow hunting for stretch necks. Can;t wait to hear  the rest of the story!

[pdk25]

So Dustin showed up that afternoon and we played around shooting the round bale and sharpening some broadheads before we headed out to the woods around 4:30.  I dropped Dustin off at the blind on the south edge of the ryegrass field, and was thinking about setting up on the north edge but one part of me didn't want to crowd him too much and it was soon decided when I heard gobbling far to the north.  I wasn't sure if they were on the property, so I headed north of the sand plums to set up my blind.  I ended up spooking a group that was feeding to the northwest on my property, but they didn't seem to worried, so I set up the blind and hoped for the best.

Once again, I wasn't sitting long before I heard gobbling around me, but it took awhile for anything to get towards me.  Once again, the 4 Jakes showed up.  This time they weren't attached to any hens that I could see, but I think at this point they had been pretty educated and stayed 15 yards or so out and in some light cover.  They definitely saw the blind as something new, and were more worried about that than the decoy.  I wasn't doing much calling, just waiting.  They meandered off, and I texted Dustin.  Shortly after that the Jakes showed up in his field with a hen, and I had some hopes for him, since the blind had been there a little while now.

As it turned out, they were still skittish and wouldn't come close enough for a shot.  They ended up giving him a wide berth, on a hill that would have given me a shot if I had set up on the north edge where I was going to.  A darned shame when you have to plan you spots based on turkeys be spooked at another blind/decoy set up, lol.

After a little time, I heard some clucking and here come the Jakes again, but they seemed a litte more bold this time.  At 15 yards and the lead bird facing me, I drew back just after he cleared the brush, and he gave me a broadside shot.  I took my time and aimed up the leg and took the shot.  Birds went everywhere clucking angrily, and I saw my bird run off to the right with my arrow sticking in him.  It looked a little low in the body, which is kinda where I wanted it.  I always get a little nervous when I don't see an animal go down, but I didn't want to push him too far.  I have the luxury of going home and getting a dog to track if I need to.

After around 20 minutes I got out of the blind with an arrow nocked in case I needed a quick shot.  I went to the impact site and started sight tracking him in the direction he came.  Aroundd 10 yards from the shot I saw a downed log with a hump in it.  It looked a little off, but I didn't think the bird would be down so soon.  I was wrong.  The feather pattern was just mimicking the bark.  So that is that.  My first turkey.  I know it is only a Jake, but I am real happy with it.  Sorry for posting all of the other stuff, but it was my first real turkey season an it was pretty exciting.  Here are some pics that I took before I met back up with Dustin and some pics he took of me carrying the bird back.  Thanks for all the help, Dave.  And thanks for bringing me luck, Dustin.

 

 

 

 


 

[pdk25]

The pics don't make alot of sense for the impact, but it hit low in the wing just a hair above and forward of the leg.  I guess the fact that it was standing upright makes a big difference.  I was using a snuffer and my 50# thunderchild.

On a side note, I would like to experience one of those aggressive frigging gobblers rushing in and attacking the decoys.  These birds don't have tons of pressure and yet seemed pretty skittish to me.  Hopefully by next year I will be more effective at calling and not make so many mistakes.

[Knawbone]

You did a fine job and that's a nice bird. Those big Gobs are nice to tag, but they don't eat as good as those younger birds.IMHO Big congrats on your first Gobbler and I enjoyed your story and     enthusiasm for the hunt.          

[jonsimoneau]

Way to go! Great shot!  Turkeys with a bow ain't easy. Took me forever to kill one!

[toehead]

Pat thanks again for letting me use your set up and decoys man, it was a great time on an awesome meadow.  The brilliant red of a turkey head in the spring always amazes me!  

I can't thank Pat enough for giving up his best blind,  decoys and rye meadow for me, this after he had been hunting his tail off all season to get his first turkey!  Great trophy my friend! Make sure to get that fan tacked up and drying out and save that beard!