| imabballer |
01-17-2011 09:28 PM |
My first turkey, and with a bow!
1 Attachment(s)
First things first I guess, hello to everybody on huntingnet.com, this is my first post here. I have read the forums for awhile but finally decided to join. As a little background I am a newer hunter, this year was only my 3rd year to deer/turkey hunt. I grew up in a family that the most we did outdoors was cut the grass, but have always wanted to hunt inside. After settling down and starting a family of my own, and with the help and advice of a few really good friends, I started hunting. Up until this year I had strictly spring hunted turkeys with a shotgun, and had zero luck. I had seen a couple hens last spring, and two springs ago got a tom gobbling at me but blew it as he got close.
This fall while deer hunting I happened across an area in the woods I hunt that you couldn't take two steps in any direction without stepping in a turkey scratch. I decided to watch this area closely over the course of the next week or so while deer hunting, and found that a flock would roost close to this area every few days. I then set up a blind in this field and came back the next morning. I put my tom decoy about 20 yards from my blind and before first sun as soon as I made the first call I had birds returning the calls from the roost. After about 20 or 30 minutes I heard them fly down from the roost and start moving through the woods coming toward me. The flock came within about 80 yards of me and hung up feeding. I called and called but they seemed to care less about my calling. FINALLY, I made a few extremely loud calls, and I noticed a few jakes seemed to notice my decoy, and started acting more aggressive. Four of them eventually worked their way over to me, and I was able to get my first turkey ever with a bow at 30 yards!
I had noticed through my binoculars a couple really nice long-beards in the flock, and I ended up just getting a jake, but I have to admit after all of the times I have been turkey hunting with nothing to show for it, I would have been excited with a hen, and to have something now to mount, even though it's just a jake's fan, and especially having taken it with my bow really made all the hard work I've put into turkey hunting worth it. I honestly had started getting a little burnt out on turkey hunting, but am now completely hooked.
Hopefully this picture works. I have attached a picture I got on my trail cam of *some* of the turkey flock. I think I counted 24 in this picture alone.
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