My friend Hawksfan and I spent a long weekend turkey hunting in southeast Washington. We came frustratingly close to filling our tags all three days. Cliff notes of the trip:
Nearly hit a flock of turkey’s trying to cross hwy 12
Ended up inside 100 yards away from bighorn sheep. This was awesome, prior to this trip I’d only ever seen them as fuzzy dots in my binoculars
Saw two toms fight over a hen
Saw over 20 bearded turkeys
Saw three herds of elk, well over 100 head total!
Had a very un-stealthy hunter (bow hunter at that, wtf?) bust our Friday morning hunt. He ended up drawing down on my hen decoy…
Had an epiphany that if the WDFW really wanted to make money they’d start selling draw tags to allow a lucky hunter to hunt the day before the season opens (that’s when all the animals are out taunting you)
Got to watch a cow and an elk disagree on who got to eat grass in an area, surprisingly the cow won
Hawksfan caught a smallmouth bass
Had a 40 minute “talk” with a gobbler, but he managed to stay just out of range.
Saw a cow defy gravity by walking and eating on a hillside I don’t think I could stand on it was so steep
Had an encounter with two hens at about 5 yards and they didn’t see or hear me, hooray camouflage. About half an hour later had a tom gobbling behind the tree I was set up in, they’re loud!
Turkeys can run fast, and fly faster. I cannot fly or run uphill very well.
We'll hopefully be able to get out again soon... We're definatly getting closer to filling our tags! Good luck to all the other turkey hunters out there!
