NEWHunter
Well-known member
All of our turkey hunting consists of pursuing birds in the suburbs in my home area of WI. With youth season approaching, I started sending my dad out to see which of our spots held birds. Thankfully, a 15 acre parcel had a had a flock of about 20 passing through fairly regularly. There were 6 toms and about 15 hens in the group.
I had the alarm set for 3 am opening morning. I made and packed breakfast and lunch and then went upstairs to get the little guy. He wouldn’t budge, so I carried him out to the car seat. Surprisingly he woke up and kept me company for the almost 2 hour drive. We couldn’t stay with grandma and grandpa due to so social distancing concerns - also my excuse for having somebody else scout for me.
We got to the spot about 5:20 and I spent the next 20 minutes hauling and setting up gear for the hunt. We crawled in a few minutes later and were all settled a few minutes before light. We could see the flock roosted about 600 yards away and hear the occasional gobble. At about 6:30 the last hen flew down and the wait was on. Per my dad’s scouting report, the birds had shown 4 of the last 5 days.
At 7 am the old Tom with the busted up fan crested the hill at about 125 yards and worked his way in to about 80. I had a pair of DSD hens set at 15 yards from the blind, but I think the blind bothered him a bit and he headed back the way he came.
Just as he was about to disappear, 4 toms crested the hill about 60 yards from him. Unfortunately the topography kept the toms from seeing the decoys. Those toms and about a dozens hens worked their way over the crest and in to our view and spent the next hour strutting, chasing, picking, and pecking. They stayed 95 to 120 yards out the whole time. I called occasionally and even threw in some cutting here and there but could not budge them. I had set the blind with the sun directly behind us, but sometime during the show I got a bit worried about our concealment, so I pulled off one of my XL fleece jackets, rolled the sleeves several times, and put it on my son. As much as we like the packers, I didn’t want that gray sweatshirt potentially costing us a bird.
My son and I enjoyed the show for over an hour. Shortly after 8 am I think the birds got tired of sitting in one place and decided to continue on their daily pattern. I started to get really nervous as they looked like they were going to take a slight detour that day and not give us a shot. So I pulled out one of my other favorite mouth calls and subtly went to work.
Well, one of the toms, who had been a little ways from the others started heading our way. He closed to 75 yards and i new he was interested. At 50 yards he started skirting the decoys and I started contemplating letting my son take a shot. He walked in an arc for about 25 yards, never closing the distance. Again, I got nervous, and just when I thought he was going to walk away, he turned 90 degrees. I yelped softly and he puffed up and started strutting in.
It was at about this time that his three buddies noticed what was going on, and they started to strut on over. Well, upon seeing this, our huckleberry picked up the pace and I started getting my little guy prepped to take a shot. At 35 yards, I wasn’t going to wait for him to get any closer. As this was my son’s first ever shot at something, I wasn’t going to get fancy and make him fan down and stick his head up. To keep it simple, I told him to focus on the bottom of the neck and be ready. It took a bit to get ready to pull the trigger and the Tom continued to close. By the time he touched it off, he had closed to thirty yards. A bit of flopping and it was over.
Scouting photos - I’m pretty sure our bird was one of the two year olds in the second photo.
Big guy at the top of the hill moving away. Yeah, I had hoped he could use the crossbow (mom was concerned about using a shotgun) but decided against it when our bird was hanging up at 50 yards.
After that is the sprint to his prize.
Grandpa got to watch almost all of this from the truck and my son must have told me, unprompted, that this was the best day ever about ten different times. Days don’t get any better than that.
P.S. I decided it was a good time to pin up that grouse fan I’ve had in the freezer since fall too. Anybody know of any good mail order places for fan plaques?
I had the alarm set for 3 am opening morning. I made and packed breakfast and lunch and then went upstairs to get the little guy. He wouldn’t budge, so I carried him out to the car seat. Surprisingly he woke up and kept me company for the almost 2 hour drive. We couldn’t stay with grandma and grandpa due to so social distancing concerns - also my excuse for having somebody else scout for me.
We got to the spot about 5:20 and I spent the next 20 minutes hauling and setting up gear for the hunt. We crawled in a few minutes later and were all settled a few minutes before light. We could see the flock roosted about 600 yards away and hear the occasional gobble. At about 6:30 the last hen flew down and the wait was on. Per my dad’s scouting report, the birds had shown 4 of the last 5 days.
At 7 am the old Tom with the busted up fan crested the hill at about 125 yards and worked his way in to about 80. I had a pair of DSD hens set at 15 yards from the blind, but I think the blind bothered him a bit and he headed back the way he came.
Just as he was about to disappear, 4 toms crested the hill about 60 yards from him. Unfortunately the topography kept the toms from seeing the decoys. Those toms and about a dozens hens worked their way over the crest and in to our view and spent the next hour strutting, chasing, picking, and pecking. They stayed 95 to 120 yards out the whole time. I called occasionally and even threw in some cutting here and there but could not budge them. I had set the blind with the sun directly behind us, but sometime during the show I got a bit worried about our concealment, so I pulled off one of my XL fleece jackets, rolled the sleeves several times, and put it on my son. As much as we like the packers, I didn’t want that gray sweatshirt potentially costing us a bird.
My son and I enjoyed the show for over an hour. Shortly after 8 am I think the birds got tired of sitting in one place and decided to continue on their daily pattern. I started to get really nervous as they looked like they were going to take a slight detour that day and not give us a shot. So I pulled out one of my other favorite mouth calls and subtly went to work.
Well, one of the toms, who had been a little ways from the others started heading our way. He closed to 75 yards and i new he was interested. At 50 yards he started skirting the decoys and I started contemplating letting my son take a shot. He walked in an arc for about 25 yards, never closing the distance. Again, I got nervous, and just when I thought he was going to walk away, he turned 90 degrees. I yelped softly and he puffed up and started strutting in.
It was at about this time that his three buddies noticed what was going on, and they started to strut on over. Well, upon seeing this, our huckleberry picked up the pace and I started getting my little guy prepped to take a shot. At 35 yards, I wasn’t going to wait for him to get any closer. As this was my son’s first ever shot at something, I wasn’t going to get fancy and make him fan down and stick his head up. To keep it simple, I told him to focus on the bottom of the neck and be ready. It took a bit to get ready to pull the trigger and the Tom continued to close. By the time he touched it off, he had closed to thirty yards. A bit of flopping and it was over.
Scouting photos - I’m pretty sure our bird was one of the two year olds in the second photo.
Big guy at the top of the hill moving away. Yeah, I had hoped he could use the crossbow (mom was concerned about using a shotgun) but decided against it when our bird was hanging up at 50 yards.
After that is the sprint to his prize.
Grandpa got to watch almost all of this from the truck and my son must have told me, unprompted, that this was the best day ever about ten different times. Days don’t get any better than that.
P.S. I decided it was a good time to pin up that grouse fan I’ve had in the freezer since fall too. Anybody know of any good mail order places for fan plaques?
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