3 peat in Iowa with El Uno

[LITTLEBIGMAN]

Once Again my annual pilgrimage to West Central Iowa to hunt Turkeys with my good friend and turkey master Bwana Jackson was filled with laughter, birds, and a full cooler to return home with.

 

[Tom]

Nothing like a teaser to get a day started, sure this will be a good one.

[ron w]

 Looks like a story coming........  

[CoachBGriff]

My coffee is brewing       !  Let's hear all about it!

[LITTLEBIGMAN]

Arriving late Thursday evening, I prepared my hunting gear while waiting for Bwana to return from the field.

The early hot weather was affecting the birds and Bwana had only heard one or two gobbles all afternoon.

Old Friends as we are, we spent too much time catching up and making a plan for the quickly approaching dawn.

Bwana had a blind all ready in place in an old favorite spot. On old style Double Bull was set in a serious strutting Zone which was a vibrant green after a recent controlled burn. This spot is just a few hundred yards from a great roosting area.

After being dropped off. I spent a few minutes trying to arrange my gear to accommodate this left handed shooter shooting out of a right handers blind.

Some faint gobbles started far off and then got louder as the nearer birds chimed in. I use a string tracker and while in Nebraska last week I got stingy and rather than cutting the string off at the end of a hunt, I had left it attached to an arrow in the quiver. This created a bit too much slack on the floor of the blind that I decided to correct.

I barely had the string reattached when I looked out the left window and a silent Tom had snuck in and was gliding into my shooting lane in FULL STRUT! Fumbling to put the arrow on the string before he passed. I got it on and went to full draw immediately.

Whack! The arrow barely made it out the blind and was in the Tom!

The string tracker went ZZZZzzzzZZZZZzzzzzZZZZZz.

I knew I had only about 1/3 a spool having had this spool in use for the last three or four seasons.

Then it went ZZZzzzZZz and then ZZZZzz. I was inches from being out of line when it stopped.

[LITTLEBIGMAN]

I hadn't been in the blind 20 minutes! Birds were now every where I looked. I put El Uno down and grabbed the Nikon.

Three HUGE Toms were trotting to me from the west. They came in to about 12 yards.
 

The lead Tom Had long pointy spurs!
 

[LITTLEBIGMAN]

There were two Toms and some Jakes and a handful of hens to the East about 100 yards away. They  were running and around and making a racket. The three new comers took off at a trot in that direction.

I decided since I was sure my bird was down and out I'd enjoy the show.  I poured a cup of coffee and texted Bwana that a big bird was on the ground for good.

Looking to the East four Jakes were now headed my way.  They came right in to my set.

 

[LITTLEBIGMAN]

Hearing a truck coming from about a 1/2 mile away I knew my friend was on the way to help recover and photo my 10th Tom with a bow.

We followed the string that zigzagged thru deadfalls , burnt tree trunks and multi floral rose thickets.
 

The blood trail was amazing. I have been on many deer blood trails not as good as this one was.

We had followed the string about 200 yards when we came to this.

 

What the heck?

[LITTLEBIGMAN]

All the forest litter had created enough drag that the string had pulled out from behind the screw in VPA three blade.

But there was a great blood trail to follow.  We both commented on how far the bird had traveled. My perfect looking hit was not so perfect after all.

The bird was headed down into some nasty wet and slippery rough ground that eventually ends up at a river.

We followed the blood trail to this spot.
 

We both knew the bird had dropped into this gorge and hoped he was dead near by.

I looked in the narrow gorge below us and spotted the fletched end of my arrow! it was just hovering in mid air! So either the bird was dead  standing up OR.....

You guessed it. The darn thing took off at a sprint down the gorge.

Bwana raced to get ahead of him and to try and cut him off.
 

[LITTLEBIGMAN]

In the photo above you can see Bwana standing on the edge below yelling where did he go? I dropped and slipped and fell down into the muddy gorge and followed blood to a littler gorge that branched to the right just past those two deadfalls.

The bird had run in here and had boxed himself in.
 

 

[LITTLEBIGMAN]

He was very much alive. My arrow was lodged just above his leg in his thigh. Why this bird didn't fly up when he had a chance I will never know But I was very lucky he had not.

Now we were both thinking, with this much blood loss how is this bird still alive?

We took photo's had a cup of coffee both expecting the bird to pass. After an hour his head was still up and I felt pretty guilty.

So once again I fell on my rear going down into the gorge ( Bwana got that on video and thought it quite funny).

I put a finishing arrow into him and retrieved my muddy bird.

   

   

   

24 lbs of wet and muddy Tom.  This is my third Tom in a row in Iowa with my Widow. It seems to have some serious Turkey mojo.

Next year I will carry it here again but I am hunting farther from the creek bottom

[Bernie B.]

Congratulations!  That was quite a hunt!      

Bernie

[pitbull]

Congrats on an excellent hunt and gobbler!    

[Broken Quiver]

I love it when a story doesn't come out the way we expect. Con grats, great camp fire story!

[Whip]

Congrats again Jim!  It's great to read the detailed story.  Good times, good friends, in beautiful country!

[mangonboat]

Great story! Way to stay after him.

[Kopper1013]

Congrats!!!

[Cyclic-Rivers]

Well Done Jim!!!!

Bravo!!!!    

[suburbanirma]

Great story! Thanks for sharing.

[doubleo]

Those gobblers are some tough criters! Glad you got him,Jim!