180class
Well-Known Member
This is going to be long….sorry!
What a weekend! This was one of, if not the most fun hunt I’ve ever had with my dad….and we’ve had a lot! We got on the road Friday afternoon at about 3:30. After a quick stop at Scheels to pick up a couple more necessities that dad felt he HAD to have
, we were finally headed down the road. The plan was to get to the public hunting area with enough time for an evening hunt. When we arrived at the area, I quickly realized that I underestimated just how big 1,800 acres was. There was a particular area that I wanted to try and find. From looking at the aerial maps all of last week, I was certain this area would be our best choice. It was a big field on up on top of what looked like 5 or 6 different ridge lines. Once we got there, we couldn’t find this area of the property to save our lives. In fact, we pretty much got lost. We were driving on level B dirt roads down in BFE Southern Iowa. We were on roads that weren’t even shown on the map I had. Finally we found a farm house and there was a guy outside mowing. I stopped and asked him for directions. He put us back on the right path, but we still couldn’t find that one particular area. Finally we found a parking lot that was used for the public hunting and recognized where we were at on the map. Although we were on the complete opposite side from where I wanted to be, we decided to just go in and sit. Pretty much we were just listening for birds to hunt the following morning. We sat up on a ridge top and I gave a few soft yelps. The only thing I managed to call in was a coyote that came in looking for dinner. He spooked as soon as dad raised his gun. Right at sundown, we had a bird fire off across the valley from us. He was probably only 200-300 yards away. Our plan was to come back at try to set up on this bird in the morning. We got back there at about 5:30 Saturday morning. Right away that bird started gobbling like crazy. At fly down, we could tell he was working away from us. We also heard 4 or 5 other gobbles that came from way back into the property. I looked at the map and I was certain they were coming from that big field I wanted to find. We packed up the decoys and started our hike. We walked probably close to a mile and a half into this place until we finally ran across an old logging road. I looked at the map and it looked like this road led straight to that big open field. After about a 30 minute walk, we found it. I told dad, this is where we needed to be! We walked to the far end of the field and set the decoys up on top of the field were they could be seen from a long ways a way. We found a big old oak tree and settled in. At this point, we really weren’t expecting a whole lot since it was about 10:00 in the morning and we hadn't heard a gobble in quite some time. We were both fully expecting to just take a nap under the tree and wasted away the afternoon. We were only sitting there about a half hour and a Tom fired off directly behind us only about 75 yards away. Instantly dad’s eyes were about the size of silver dollars. I told him “don’t move, that bird is close”. I gave him a few soft putts and he fired right back off at me. I yelped, and he cut me off. He was coming and coming in fast. The last time he gobbled he couldn’t have been more than 30 yards behind us, but we couldn’t turn around to see him. Suddenly we heard a hen start putting. I knew right away she had seen my decoys and was trying to pull the Tom away. She did. She led him off into the bottom about 200 yards away. We were both pretty bummed, but I told dad, I was going to do my best to call him away from that hen. I kept throwing out the sexiest yelps I could and every time, he gobbled back. He knew there was a hot hen up there and he wanted her. After about 45 minutes of coaxing him, he started making his way back up towards the field. Dad was getting excited again. Finally the bird gobbled and he was back to within about 40 yards to our left. At this point I knew he was committed. I told dad he was going to enter the field to our left and make his way up to the decoys. I looked at dad and he was shaking. I haven’t seen him shake like that while hunting for years. I was sitting a little bit lower than dad was, so he had a better view of the setup than I did. All of a sudden he says “There he is. Oh, wow, look at him. This is awesome.” I looked up and saw the bird at full strut coming into our spread. He was heading straight towards Pretty Boy. I was hoping dad would wait long enough so we could see the bird try to kick Pretty Boy’s butt. That didn’t happen. Dad says “can I shoot him?” I was going to say “as soon as you get a shot at his head, take it.” All I got out was “as soon as you get a shot….BOOM!” He smoked him. We both jumped up and dad started yelling like a mad man! It was awesome! He gave me a big hug and we went to check out his bird. He ended up weighing right at 20 pounds. 11.5” beard with 1-1-8” spurs. After this, I didn’t even care to fill my tag. I was satisfied. We made the hike all the way back to the truck and then back to the cabin where we celebrated. Sunday morning was a bust. Weather was terrible. Cloudy, windy and we didn’t hear a single gobble. I really didn’t care. It was a great weekend and I know dad is hooked on turkey hunting from here on out!
What a weekend! This was one of, if not the most fun hunt I’ve ever had with my dad….and we’ve had a lot! We got on the road Friday afternoon at about 3:30. After a quick stop at Scheels to pick up a couple more necessities that dad felt he HAD to have
