Success!!!! I bagged two with two shots. They were on the small side.
I had to get close to verify beards because I left my binocs in my rig.
It was a 6 mile hike round trip. We even left our camera, so this was taken on my phone.
Sorry about the run on paragraph. I was suppose to be taking an afternoon nap before
we got back out there. Typically I read just posts and that was my first post myself. I will strive to
keep them in an easier format to read.
I confess that I found getting turkeys on public land was challenging to say the least. Our
whole time scouting this season saw the most visible birds were of course on private land. We
tried our luck asking permission, but were denied every time by the land owners. In total I
looked up 20 parcels. We found only seven people with phone #s listed, and the other 13 we
knocked on their doors. Man this left a sour taste in my mouth. Almost every time the land
owner would reply "We use an outfitter to take care of the turkeys". What is that suppose to
mean? Are they considered pest? We spent a lot of time making these permission slips up with
pictures of our licenses to show who we are. Hopefully making us look like regular folks who
could be trusted. I was willing to barter also. I offered $50 or some sort of work in exchange.
I have worked in construction most of my life, so I can pretty much do anything from light carpentry
to painting. The "outfitters" must make way better offers. The four owners that let me get to my
pitch didn't even hesitate. I can respect them wanting to honer an agreement, but come on.
when did hunting become all about money. I am not going to bash these outfitters as two of them
post fairly frequently on this site. A person has to make a living I suppose. I may not have gotten
any trophies(I was raised not to be a trophy hunter anyway); but I did it with my own blood, sweat, and tears.
It is true the sum of money and time I dropped on all the scouting/hunting could have paid for a nice
guided trip a few times over. This however would have turned to ash in my mouth.
It is hard to explain the joy when I took these birds. Not to mention the challenge. The two days
prior to nabbing the birds we chased three different flocks around 10 miles. I was doing everything I
could to heed the advice that had been so graciously given to me. Unfortunately we were busted at
least six times. Not bad enough to make them fly. Just enough for them to decide to waltz the other
way. They were not very talkative either, and showed almost no interest in our decoys. We kept
mixing up our call devices (which I have been practicing with for months), and paid careful attention to
how frequent we were calling. On the second day I left my fiancee down where they fly in off the roost
to call and hopefully plant it in Toms head to go that way later. She sat there for hours will I
run-and-gunned. She never saw Tom again, and because of my poor timing I kept getting busted.
My instincts were always right. I knew the topography of the land from all the scouting, and therefore
the best ways up a hill for a turkey. They would bust me and head around a knob. Then I would take
off in a full sprint around the other direction up. I am not a world class athlete and am carrying easily
twenty extra pounds of body weight. So I will not lie. That part sucked. However what was great was
finding the spot where I just knew they would end up, and then sure enough they come. If only I
managed to get settled in. They would spot me and waltz away. Damn that is frustrating. Worse is
when I did manage to settle in with my decoys out, but no takers. I would do a couple easy going calls
maybe a pure or two. "Hey look at me I am an pretty hen". 10-15 minutes later a curious head would
poke up about 100 yards across the face of the meadow. He would stare directly at the decoys. Let
out only a mildly interested gobble and wait for a reply. I softly called back added some clucks for good
measure. Nothing. Another head poked and joined in the staring contest. Either I have the worst
decoys ever made or the 8 or so hens they were with kept them busy as is. This particular flock did not
have many jakes on the fringe of the flock either. I think I saw 2 at most. I think these Toms had it way
too easy this breeding season. After a few minutes of staring, me purring( I can make a sexy purr) and half
enthusiastic strut they moved. I radioed down the valley where Kacey was still waiting to see if some
birds would double back to see what they missed that morning. With the luck I had been having I wasn't
surprised that it was a no go. It was twelve so we called it good for the morning and headed back to take a nap.
This is when I wrote the previous post (I should have been napping). We were not to eager to stay out
there though the middle of the day due to the fact we knew where they would roost.
At 5 or so we came back. There is two meadows for them to come and get some last minute snacks
before they went to roost. Like I mentioned earlier I did not bump the birds to bad as to make them flee.
From what I have come to understand they should take the route that I have seen them take twice
before. Not two far to the east is a nesting site that I refused to go near after we discovered it. I don't
care that there might have been a Tom or two patrolling the area. When we spotted the hens coming off
the nest. We decided we did not have enough experience with turkeys to potentially risk jeopardizing the
future of this flock. I have heard that birds will abandon nest all together if pressured by humans.
We sat in our spots waiting for the turkeys to return. The light was fading fast by about 7:50, and legal
hunt time was up at 8:19 that day. Patience not being a natural virtue of mine I was growing restless. I
also felt bad for my better half. She had done nothing but wait all day. At least I wore my self out chasing
some. We were arriving at the conclusion that I must have forced them out of the area. When I saw
movement up on the ridge to our left. Just like that they were back up in the treeline by the creek. I think
they were running late or something and decided not to dilly dally in the meadow. Previously I had seen
them hang out here before roosting. No turkeys that day.
Sunday rolls around. We are up at 2:30. That meant not a lot of sleep after getting back and eating
dinner. This was our last day in Colville we were heading back to the west side after a morning hunt.
I had given It some consideration. The area we were in is not "road hunters area". I don't know many
hunters with my determination, and the ones I do know are as insane about firearm safety as I am. You really
have to beat bush to get where we were going. I mapped the whole area with my Garmin Base Camp app, and
a lot of Google Earth. I officially unofficially claim it as my honey pot. That is why I am not describing it in
detail, but I know I am not the only hunter to come through there. The area was really clean. I took this to
mean the rif-raff were not willing to go through what we did to get there. I know that more hunters are
shot during turkey season then any other time combined. There is many numb skulls out there willing to
shoot at noise if even a hen. We dropped the seats off our vest. left all the decoys to go unused. No
binocs. Unfortunately no camera. We took a little backwoods survial kit, my shotgun, her bow, water,
and extra orange for our back sides. We were stalking turkeys.
I wanted to get in fast. Hunker down for a nap in what I suspected was a kind of central point between
the three flocks I knew. We made great time. It took about two and half hours to get to the meadow over
looking a small gorge. I wanted to wait until 9 so the sun would be well up at that point. We agreed to split the
time taking watch and napping. We don't use caffeine so we were just running on raw adrenaline. We were tired.
Her shift went off without a hitch. She had heard lots off roosted calls. It brought images to her mind of a
bunch of neighbors too close quartered to each other with adjacent facing widows. They would routinely
engage in a series of shouting matches. "Hey shut up". "No you shut". "what are you telling me to shut for"?
This would go on for awhile until all parties involved came to the decision to agree to disagree. That was
about the split of our shift. At which point she woke me. I on the other hand went almost the whole time
hearing little to no calling action. The occasional gobble would be enough to sustain me though. She was
using our Garmin (can never leave GPS behind) to point and click the direction she heard the gobbles the
strongest. She was just guessing the distance. It wasn't that important to know the distance, but we
did know was the lay of the land. From every draw with an intermittent stream to every meadow face with
cliff abutments. We had it memorized and stored on the GPS (brain first, device second).
I woke her from her not-needed beauty sleep, pumped some much-needed hydration into us, and we
were off. In previous post I stated that Stalk hunting was how I was taught growing up in Utah. I feel
this is what I know best. This is not to say that I am this world renown woodsman-superhuman-hunter.
No. This is me saying I am most comfortable doing so. It is easier for me to perceive events when they
happen at faster pace. It is for some reason that it makes me think clearer. When things happen slower
it makes me impulsive because I can not settle on a thought to do any real logical thought processing.
Speed things up (mentally not physically), and I am on it.
We start flying through the woods in away that can only be described as; flash of light, flash of tree, wait, watch,
and listen. I wanted our approach to be from the east. With the sun coming up over the jagged ridge above I
wanted to use the sun as part of my cover. Anything watching for our approach from above would be blinded by the
light. The wind was towards us. I needed it to push the brush around enough to afford us the opportunity to
seize the rhythm of nature. We moved with tempo set by the swaying brush. We had gone about a quarter mile
in no time at all. The draw to my left led to a little gully. In the midst of it I immediately picked out my birds. We froze
and then melted into the ground as carefully as possible. I belly slid back far enough so I could not see them.
After a brief assessment of the situation we came to a couple conclusions: we were about forty yards out, we had
no binocs to scope them through, could not tell if they were legal or not, needed to get closer, and with them surrounded
on all sides by high ground makes us just a little safer from un-friendly fire. We decided to mouth call to see if we could
get them to come closer to the base near us.
I am often surprised at animal behavior. You can read a hundred books, and ask hundred hunters about your intended
prays behavior with varied responses. This still is not enough to fully understand animal nature. We slid back to the
edge of the draw allowing our eyes to lead the movement thus minimizing our exposure. The sun to our backs helped
out immensely in shielding us from their gaze. I don't recall what time in the morning it was. Probably not much after 9:45. The sun was at a perfect angle shooting down directly in their eyes. This made them feel a little vulnerable. When they would move around they avoided going directly forward, but skirted the sides a little. I carefully glanced
around the upper rim of the area to make sure there wasn't any visible look outs. I scanned the area again to see if
maybe someone else was watching them as well. I let out two quick calls. These guys freaked out! They bumped
into each other ducking for cover. They did not fly away, but seriously hid. I thought they were gone. Until
ever so slowly they poked their heads out to survey the land. It looked so funny. Their heads were changing
colors. My hen calls scared them so bad they would not even take flight. All they did was sit their making weird
sounds with their bodies tucked almost completely into this bush. I am not a biologist, but if I had to guess what
was going on. I would say they probably have had their butts kicked so bad by the head toms in the area that
when there was a hen noise they thought a tom was near by too. I may be wrong.
At this point being our last day I decided that I alone would close in for the kill. I have had more practice with foot
placement and situation awareness, so it wasn't hard for my hunter babe to tell me "go gettem baby". What would
I do without such an awesome lady to share my hunts with? I not wanting to waste time honed every fiber of being
to target these beautiful birds. By this point they had relaxed and were going about their day. I fell into a sort of
rhythm with my prey. When three heads were focused elsewhere I silently moved closer. If they turned suddenly
I froze. I am not in the greatest of shape. So, when I am forced to freeze with one foot up in mid step while
balancing on a hillside aiming a shot gun for up to a minute or more it hurts. After repeating this scenario a few times
I finally got close enough to verify they had beards (although very short, but still legal). My whole body was on fire.
I couldn't pay attention to that now. Every ounce of my focus was on them.
It took me to get about 20 feet from them to be able to get a clear shot. I was over come with amazement at
how close I was able to get. Turkeys have great vision, but that is useless with the sun is in their eyes. While timing
their movements I was silently celebrating the fact that I had already beaten these birds. I could have taken one
with a rock a this distance. One last alarm went off in my head. I have been patterning my shotgun with an
extra full choke at ranges from 20-40 yards. Not 20 feet. I was either going to miss or I was going to disintegrate
their heads. As quickly as the thought entered my head I dismissed it. Now was not the time for doubt. I took 3
long deep breaths to force oxygen into my aching muscles to maintain my steadiness. When all three heads
looked the other way. I struck
Bam Bam the shotgun roared. I pumped out two rounds in such rapid succession it sounded like I was rocking a
Saiga semi-auto. Two birds fell rolling and flapping. I squeezed of the first shot with enough confidence to not
wait to see if a follow up shot was needed. I dropped the second bird in less then a second from the first. The
third turkey was so confused at the loud noise and its fallen comrades. It ran this way and that way. All the while
I still had one shot left, and a barrel pointed right at its head. It took all my will power to raise the gun and let it
go. I was not going to succumb to the excitement. A two bag limit area is a to bag limit area for a reason.
I watched as this lucky bird gathered its thoughts and flew away. I yelled in its direction "see you later turkey lurkey".
What can I say I am full of corny catch phrases. The pics were on a crappy cell phone. Check out my flea bitten
partially emaciated birds with just stubs (legal) for beards.
