For the 11th day of the last 12, I drug myself out of bed at 4am to head to the woods after my 4th season bird. Thus far, it's been awesome from the fact that I've heard gobbles every morning and seen a good number of birds the last few days. Frustrating from the fact that they've never been roosted in the same spot two mornings in a row, and only three mornings have i heard gobbles from the property that I have permission on- each time I was in the absolute wrong spot.
After playing the 'where are they going to be & where should I set up' game for a week, I finally decided that I was going commit to setting up in a field on the east side of the timber every day. When the birds are in the timber I have permission on, they always come to that field and I'm confident that if I put my time in there I'll get my chance eventually.
When the gobbling started this morning I was a bit disappointed to hear that they weren't behind me like I'd hoped, instead they're south of me on the next property. Every other morning when they've started to gobble south of me, they head south & out of my life for another day, so I decides to enjoy myself anyway & listen to the show.
After making a few calls, I was pleasantly surprised to hear a gobble that sounded like it was getting closer. Upon further inspection I spotted a tom strutting in a bean field about 200 yards to my southwest, but he was just on the other side of the small river (20 yards wide bank to bank) that runs 150 yards to my south- and he had a hen with him. He worked his way to the east along the river, kinda leaving the hen behind him so when he was straight south of me and within clear view of my setup I called a few more times. He strutted around & gobbled awhile then kept heading east along the river, this time at a pretty good pace and into a bunch of trees that is on both sides of the river & out of sight about 400 yards away.
"Neat to see", I thought to myself.
About that time I heard some more gobbles and 3 more toms came into view and were on the exact same path as the first tom. They walked right by the hen, strutted and gobbled at my setup when they were straight south of me and ran down into the trees where the first tom disappeared into.
This time I thought to myself, "Huh....either that hen must be really ugly or there must be a helluva turkey orgy going on down in those trees".
They were pretty fired up and would gobble at least every few minutes, which was nice to hear because by now it's getting close to 7:00 and usually they've shut down on the gobbling long before then. I was keeping an eye on the area and after awhile I saw a tom come up from the river bank about 100 yards beyond the clump of trees- but this one was on my side of the river and headed in my general direction! Things were looking up!
I called a few times and he gobbled back & started strutting- still at least 400 yards away to the east and a bit south along the river. I'd read somewhere that persistent calling when they can see your setup can make them hang up, so I quit calling for awhile to see if he'd commit. It was a slow process, but he was slowing making his way toward me- he would gobble strut & walk toward me about 20 yards at a time. About the 5th time he did this, all of a sudden he folded his fan up and started running straight north away from the river. I couldn't figure out what was going on until I saw the 'Three Amigos' come up over the river bank heading my way! They were about 400 yards away too and doing the same thing the first tom did...strut, gobble, walk, gobble, strut, walk.....
When they got about 250 yards out, the biggest tom eliminated two of the steps in the process and just kept walking and the others followed suit. I thought to myself, "Here we go!"
I slunk down beneath the window and made sure everything was out of my way and that i wouldn't make any unnatural noises when I was drawing on my first bird with a bow. When I peeked again they were still coming...200 yards now and angling away from the river they'd been following and coming straight on. Just then I saw a herd of about 25 deer running scared from the group of trees they'd come from 200 yards behind them. They looked back and acted concerned so I gave them a few soft clucks and they focused their attention back on my spread and kept coming. And that's when it happened.....around the corner from behind the trees comes a sprayer.....doing about 15 mph and closing the distance between it & my turkeys fast!
Needless to say, they ran down the riverbank.
After pinching myself to make sure it wasn't a bad dream, I realized that it wasn't going to be too long and the sprayer was going to be making his way toward me and over my decoys so I got out & got them picked up just in the nick of time. Just as I was throwing them in my tent, the sprayer was to me and he stopped, got out & walked toward me with an awkward smile. "Kinda %&*#ed that up for ya, didn't I?", he said. What could I say? "Ya, no big deal....you got a job to do & that's quite a bit more important than me shooting a turkey", was about the only thing I could think of for a reply. He's a friend of mine & of course I wasn't mad at him for anything....I meant what I said. So we talked for a minute, I thanked him again for letting me hunt there & I walked out. Smiling at the experience and shaking my head in utter disbelief the whole way.
So....being fairly new to turkey hunting, this leaves me with the question, what, if anything did this do for my chances thru the end of the season?
When we were talking, he (the farmer) said he saw some turkeys down in that bunch of trees the other day when he was planting the field. Like I said, I'm on the edge of the timber and there's no other timber down by that group of trees. For that matter, all of 'real timber' is on the side of the river that I'm set up on, so I don't really know what posesses them to fly down on the opposite side in the first place.
So I don't know if there was a hen down in those trees that made them go down there in the first place or there's something special about that place that they like to fly across it down there or what the deal was.
What's going to go thru their minds tomorrow? Are they going to think they were headed to a good thing in that spot before the sprayer came and maybe be interested later? Or are they going to think that my spot is voodoo because they got the crap scared out of them when they were on their way to it?
I have no idea so any thoughts would be appreciated.
Sorry for the long read....at least I feel better telling someone who will understand. My wife just didn't quite get it!
After playing the 'where are they going to be & where should I set up' game for a week, I finally decided that I was going commit to setting up in a field on the east side of the timber every day. When the birds are in the timber I have permission on, they always come to that field and I'm confident that if I put my time in there I'll get my chance eventually.
When the gobbling started this morning I was a bit disappointed to hear that they weren't behind me like I'd hoped, instead they're south of me on the next property. Every other morning when they've started to gobble south of me, they head south & out of my life for another day, so I decides to enjoy myself anyway & listen to the show.
After making a few calls, I was pleasantly surprised to hear a gobble that sounded like it was getting closer. Upon further inspection I spotted a tom strutting in a bean field about 200 yards to my southwest, but he was just on the other side of the small river (20 yards wide bank to bank) that runs 150 yards to my south- and he had a hen with him. He worked his way to the east along the river, kinda leaving the hen behind him so when he was straight south of me and within clear view of my setup I called a few more times. He strutted around & gobbled awhile then kept heading east along the river, this time at a pretty good pace and into a bunch of trees that is on both sides of the river & out of sight about 400 yards away.
"Neat to see", I thought to myself.
About that time I heard some more gobbles and 3 more toms came into view and were on the exact same path as the first tom. They walked right by the hen, strutted and gobbled at my setup when they were straight south of me and ran down into the trees where the first tom disappeared into.
This time I thought to myself, "Huh....either that hen must be really ugly or there must be a helluva turkey orgy going on down in those trees".
They were pretty fired up and would gobble at least every few minutes, which was nice to hear because by now it's getting close to 7:00 and usually they've shut down on the gobbling long before then. I was keeping an eye on the area and after awhile I saw a tom come up from the river bank about 100 yards beyond the clump of trees- but this one was on my side of the river and headed in my general direction! Things were looking up!
I called a few times and he gobbled back & started strutting- still at least 400 yards away to the east and a bit south along the river. I'd read somewhere that persistent calling when they can see your setup can make them hang up, so I quit calling for awhile to see if he'd commit. It was a slow process, but he was slowing making his way toward me- he would gobble strut & walk toward me about 20 yards at a time. About the 5th time he did this, all of a sudden he folded his fan up and started running straight north away from the river. I couldn't figure out what was going on until I saw the 'Three Amigos' come up over the river bank heading my way! They were about 400 yards away too and doing the same thing the first tom did...strut, gobble, walk, gobble, strut, walk.....
When they got about 250 yards out, the biggest tom eliminated two of the steps in the process and just kept walking and the others followed suit. I thought to myself, "Here we go!"
I slunk down beneath the window and made sure everything was out of my way and that i wouldn't make any unnatural noises when I was drawing on my first bird with a bow. When I peeked again they were still coming...200 yards now and angling away from the river they'd been following and coming straight on. Just then I saw a herd of about 25 deer running scared from the group of trees they'd come from 200 yards behind them. They looked back and acted concerned so I gave them a few soft clucks and they focused their attention back on my spread and kept coming. And that's when it happened.....around the corner from behind the trees comes a sprayer.....doing about 15 mph and closing the distance between it & my turkeys fast!
Needless to say, they ran down the riverbank.
After pinching myself to make sure it wasn't a bad dream, I realized that it wasn't going to be too long and the sprayer was going to be making his way toward me and over my decoys so I got out & got them picked up just in the nick of time. Just as I was throwing them in my tent, the sprayer was to me and he stopped, got out & walked toward me with an awkward smile. "Kinda %&*#ed that up for ya, didn't I?", he said. What could I say? "Ya, no big deal....you got a job to do & that's quite a bit more important than me shooting a turkey", was about the only thing I could think of for a reply. He's a friend of mine & of course I wasn't mad at him for anything....I meant what I said. So we talked for a minute, I thanked him again for letting me hunt there & I walked out. Smiling at the experience and shaking my head in utter disbelief the whole way.
So....being fairly new to turkey hunting, this leaves me with the question, what, if anything did this do for my chances thru the end of the season?
When we were talking, he (the farmer) said he saw some turkeys down in that bunch of trees the other day when he was planting the field. Like I said, I'm on the edge of the timber and there's no other timber down by that group of trees. For that matter, all of 'real timber' is on the side of the river that I'm set up on, so I don't really know what posesses them to fly down on the opposite side in the first place.
So I don't know if there was a hen down in those trees that made them go down there in the first place or there's something special about that place that they like to fly across it down there or what the deal was.
What's going to go thru their minds tomorrow? Are they going to think they were headed to a good thing in that spot before the sprayer came and maybe be interested later? Or are they going to think that my spot is voodoo because they got the crap scared out of them when they were on their way to it?
I have no idea so any thoughts would be appreciated.
Sorry for the long read....at least I feel better telling someone who will understand. My wife just didn't quite get it!
