1st 2011 turkey
Turkey season is finally here! With having the Nebraska Big Buck Classic on opening weekend, and having the weather be bad, I haven’t had many chances to get out yet. I was on spring break this week, so my mentor Neil offered to take me to a great place that we have seen tons of birds on. We woke up early and got down their just as planned. I was getting ready, went to the backseat to put my release on and noticed, I left my release at home! Luckily, Neil always has an extra of everything. So I put his release on and let’s go hunting.
We had 2 decoys out, a Dave Smith hen decoy, and Neil’s mounted jake decoy. The morning was very vocal with tons of gobbles and hens yelping on the roost. They flew down to the North West and Neil started calling to them with cuts, yelps, and purrs. Every time he called, they would gobble and the hens would try to intimidate him.
At 7:30, I hear something rustling in the grass, I look out the window and see this giant strutting tom, not even 20 yards away from the blind, I whisper to Neil, “there is a tom right there!, don’t move yet.” The big bird moved closer to 5 yards and started looking in the blind, that’s when I got nervous. He then laid his attention on the jake decoy and went over to it and started pushing it around with his body. I pulled my bow back and was settling my pin on the wing butt, when he turned completely away giving me a perfect, up the butt shot at 10 yards with a T3 broadhead by G5! The bird jumped up and ran away, but crashed on the other side of the trees where he came from.
One hour later, we were still hearing hens and gobbles where the birds first flew down, so Neil started calling to them some more. Every time he called, they would respond. After a few calls, they sounded like they were getting closer, so Neil stopped calling and relaxed. Just a minute later, I see two toms coming up the road. “There they are! Get ready!” Neil grabbed his bow, and I grabbed mine. The first one stopped at 20 yards and he shot perfect and dropped it like a rock. His partner circled him and I shot him just a little low, but it still looked like a good shot.
We got out of the blind and found both arrows and tracked my first bird and found it 50 yards away lying in the bushes. He weighed 22 pounds, had a double beard, and had ¾ inch spurs! We brought it back to the blind and started to track my second bird. Immediately we spotted blood and I followed the trail for 150 yards with a lot of blood, just like a deer trail. I started to lose the trail after 2 hours and 150 yards, so I decided I gave the best effort I could and gave it up. We took a couple of pictures and packed up and went home after a great morning in the woods. Turkey hunting is a great thing to do with friends, and I hope to be able to do more of it later on.
