HuntingNet.com Forums - Team 12 BEARD BUSTERZ

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ORIGINAL: Tuco

Way to go Fred...give us some details on the hunt

Its really quite a funny story. We went to hunt in Kansas with the husband of my stepmoms really good friend. Keep in mind I've never hunted turkeys before, and im never shot any animal with a bow. I will start from Thursday it was raining its A$$ off and lightning. As soon as the lightning quit we decided to chance it in the steady hard rain. We walked about 1/2 a mile through open fields climbing barb-wire fence and everything. We set up on the edge of some timber where Mark (husband of said friend) thought some birds roosted (its already been light enough to see well) so we set up and put ole B-mobile and his hen out. Well we get nothing for about 2 hours so we decided to move. This goes on for a good while. At about 11am we walk from a draw back up to where we had been sitting before, it had slowed to a drizzle by then. We walk a bit there then we look and see a flock of about 3 toms full strut in a field about 500 yards away. So we walk back behind the hill and set up where they can't see us. Well turns out that there were about 30 birds in that group. Needless to say we couldn't call them off of each other and they weren't gobbling either. So we go in for lunch, after lunch we make our way up the back to where they had been standing. They're gone of course so we head to the edge of the ridge and set up and wait till roost time. Well a general area of where the roost is. Friday we wake up and set up on the edge of the ridge which was a way they had to come from the roost to get to that field they were in Thursday. Well after about an hour we knew they weren't coming through there. So we get up and walk to the fence line and cross and look down a fence line that T's into the other. Well low and behold there they are. So then we put the sneak on, walk back to the fence line and start a 1/2 mile sneak around on the birds so we wouldn't be seen. So we sneak and get to the area they were. They aren't there so we sit on a creek bank and set up and start calling. Well they weren't far and but they seemed to be moving on. All except this Tom in the back. He was a bit interested... So he started to move the way the other birds did then he started working his way toward us. I got ready, now I have my dad, Mark and me there. The bird started working in. At about 45 yards through trees I drew because that was the only oppourtunity of him not seeing me. So he works slowly in and when he gets to the ridge to come up, I let off to far and my bow takes the string from me well I yank it back in a hurry he comes up the ridge and at 30 yards quarters to me. I let the arrow fly and feathers fly up (the bird runs) and I hear a THUD. Well I have tons of feathers and wing feathers the 2 closest to the body. No bird... I guess I hit him high over the back and I find the arrow stuck straight in a tree. Well we head in for lunch that day and we go in for lunch and hit some other areas that afternoon with no luck. Saturday (last day we planned to hunt) we go back and set up in the same spot I had shot at the last bird. We get there and they are gobbling like crazy. Well still they go the opposite way and so we get up and head up the fence row farther so we could see over the hill they were behind. Mark hits the does some yelps and stuff and then hits the gobble tube (I guess thats what it is) and then out of no where from the side of the hill we came from a white head and tail feathers pop up and we all get down ( only he had seen this bird) and he starts calling as we set up. Then from farther down the fence row a hen flys down it taking our Tom with her.

So we head back and eat. Then we go right down behind his house in a blind he had set up a while eariler this year. We get there at 2pm (all three of us in a blind..haha) Mark told us that these toms couldn't be called up so we didn't even bother calling them. He had tried 3 years to call these tom's they just won't come. Well about 4hrs after arriving I see them heading down a hill toward us. 5 toms and about 8 or so hens. Well the one tom they call the ***** one... he just doesn't EVER seem to strut or anything and never hangs around hens. Well he flys the creek between the property lines and feds for a while. The other 4 stay on the other side and strut in this field for 2 hrs. Never making a sound. Well they all disappear and out of no where coyotes howl and this tom about 100yds from us gobbles. And Mark says to me... we have nothing to lose now I might as well call... So he breaks out the Freak and starts working it like its the last hen this Tom's ever gonna see. In 20 seconds the Tom was standing at the fence getting ready to cross the creek. He goes into the creek and I draw and he comes up about 35 yards away and starts walking through a couple of trees.... The whole time Mark is so excited he called this Tom up he's trying to hold back from laughing and he lets a little out and then picks up his range finder to get his mind off the laughing and starts calling out yardage..... 34.....32.....33.....SHOOT the MOTHER F*$&% he says and I start to laugh then he says 32 and I have an opening and let the arrow fly.... Its down... we all start laughing hestrically at Mark. So we get the bird and take him home and do the dirty work... I couldn't have asked for a better time.

Sunday we decided to go hunting just so my Dad could try to fill one of his tags and we had a hen come within 10 yards of me and star me down for about 30 seconds... she moved on and then a Tom came in full strut gobbling his head off and I waited on my dad to shoot him.... at 35yds but he hung up behind a tree. I had a shoot but I expected my dad to shoot him.If he would have taken 2 more steps he wouldhave been dead too....but he didn't like the look of the decoy so we think it might have been the one I shot at before. He ran off and we all went back and ate and we started our 11 hr drive back home.

Enough details for ya? haha