kam582
New Member
As I posted earlier, I missed a good Tom about 3 weeks ago, hitting it high and seeing the arrow pull out and the bird run off. I saw it fly away, apparently very little the worse for wear, about 30 minutes later.
I hunted hard for another 4 or 5 days with no luck, and then left town for 10 days, just being able to get back out this morning. It was one of those mornings that had me wondering why I got out of bed so early. I was late getting out, it was lightning and thundering, but no rain, I had trouble with my blind, and by the time I got set up it was close to fly down time. All that, and I had not heard a single gobble. I spent the first hour of the morning wondering where the turkeys had gone, and debating if I should even hunt the last two days of the season.
I was blind calling and calling pretty often for me. About 0700 I heard some hens behind me, but never saw them. I continued to call about every 5 or 10 minutes, figuring I had nothing to lose. I still had not heard a turkey gobble at all. Suddenly, I leaned over slightly in the blind, and there were two toms coming to the decoys. I couldn't believe it, they didn't gobble, drum, cluck, purr, or make any kind of noise. They just kind of appeared there like a buck.
They acted like they wanted to strut, but didn't. I have hunted so hard this season that I wasn't going to wait and see if they would strut or attack my jake decoy or what. They looked about the same size, and as soon as the lead bird was in range I let it go. I heard a good thunk, and the bird ran off directly away from the blind. It ran about 30 yards, with the second bird in pursuit, and then went down. The second tom jumped on top of the one I had hit, and it tried to fly off, making it about another 30 yards before it went down again, this time for good. Here is kind of a fuzzy photo of the second tom standing over the down bird.
Here is my view out of the blind window that I shot the bird from. The bird was left and back about 10 yards from the decoys. The small branch that you see in the photo looks bigger than it really is in the picture, although after I set up and saw it, I figured I would probably hit it if I got a shot the way my morning was going.
And here is the bird. It had a 10 inch beard, and about half inch spurs, but it's tail fan was miserable. Don't know why. Do they sometimes lose tail feathers from fighting? It was so bad that I didn't even take a photo if it.
So I guess my morning turned out OK after all, although I am thinking about going back to a shotgun next year after all of the problems this year.
Now it's time for the Walleye to be afraid.
I hunted hard for another 4 or 5 days with no luck, and then left town for 10 days, just being able to get back out this morning. It was one of those mornings that had me wondering why I got out of bed so early. I was late getting out, it was lightning and thundering, but no rain, I had trouble with my blind, and by the time I got set up it was close to fly down time. All that, and I had not heard a single gobble. I spent the first hour of the morning wondering where the turkeys had gone, and debating if I should even hunt the last two days of the season.
I was blind calling and calling pretty often for me. About 0700 I heard some hens behind me, but never saw them. I continued to call about every 5 or 10 minutes, figuring I had nothing to lose. I still had not heard a turkey gobble at all. Suddenly, I leaned over slightly in the blind, and there were two toms coming to the decoys. I couldn't believe it, they didn't gobble, drum, cluck, purr, or make any kind of noise. They just kind of appeared there like a buck.
They acted like they wanted to strut, but didn't. I have hunted so hard this season that I wasn't going to wait and see if they would strut or attack my jake decoy or what. They looked about the same size, and as soon as the lead bird was in range I let it go. I heard a good thunk, and the bird ran off directly away from the blind. It ran about 30 yards, with the second bird in pursuit, and then went down. The second tom jumped on top of the one I had hit, and it tried to fly off, making it about another 30 yards before it went down again, this time for good. Here is kind of a fuzzy photo of the second tom standing over the down bird.
Here is my view out of the blind window that I shot the bird from. The bird was left and back about 10 yards from the decoys. The small branch that you see in the photo looks bigger than it really is in the picture, although after I set up and saw it, I figured I would probably hit it if I got a shot the way my morning was going.
And here is the bird. It had a 10 inch beard, and about half inch spurs, but it's tail fan was miserable. Don't know why. Do they sometimes lose tail feathers from fighting? It was so bad that I didn't even take a photo if it.
So I guess my morning turned out OK after all, although I am thinking about going back to a shotgun next year after all of the problems this year.
Now it's time for the Walleye to be afraid.
