Hunting Journal: Turkey Season, Day 2

Weapon: Shotgun, Maverick 88, 12 gauge, #5 birdshot

Weather: Light Rain, Very Windy

Temperature: Low 57F, High 62F

Land Type: Private

Date: 04/29/2020

Today’s hunt started bright and early at 3:30 AM. Today I was heading out to the family farm to try and get a turkey. After yesterday’s events my hopes for getting a public land turkey where nicked. Heck, my confidence in getting a turkey at all was pretty shot. I have always had good luck on the farm though and know the area as well as where the turkeys like to hang out. So I packed up the car and started the hour and half drive to my old hunting grounds.

The previous day my Grandfather had told me I would have some good luck by the food plot. This area is a field he set up for deer but is just a good wild life location. The field is completely surround by thick cover and away from all the noise of the farm, making animals feel safe. Thankfully, it also has a great little blind set up. I say thankfully because as soon as I rolled up and was getting ready it started to rain and guess who didn’t pack rain gear? Yup me. I get all ready and start the hike to the blind. This was about 5 AM.

Click image to get your Spring Fling Hen Decoy

Before leaving though I made sure to grab my Spring Fling Hen decoy from Montana Decoys. This is a folding 2D hen decoy that suprisngly life like outside of 10 yards. I don’t normally use decoys when turkey hunting. Everytime I do use them I end up scrambling to pack them up so I can move in on a bird. Today though, with the rain overhead and knowing turkeys around here like to go to fields when it’s raining, I needed something to entice a gobbler to get into shotgun range. This decoy fit the bill perfectly.

As Im walking down the old path that light rain starts to turn into a shower. Then the wind picks up. Already down I do not take these changes in weather as good omens. Hustling along I have to keep mentally reminding myself that turkeys don’t care about rain. They live outside all the time and this just means they want to get to a low spot out of the wind and that’s exactly where I am going.

It’s now about 5:30 as I reach the blind. The rain had let up slightly but was still coming down and the wind had not let up. Not worrying about being heard with all the other noise I drop off my shotgun and vest in the blind and set my decoy up 12 yards in front of my shooting window. The blind is slightly elevated on a small rise overlooking the 180 yard food plot. The scene is honestly something out of a magazine.

All set up and ready to go the waiting game starts. It’s 5:40 and grey light is slowly emerging the rain has stopped and the wind dies down a bit but overall it was still rather gloomy. Taking this into account I did not expect to see any turkeys until later in the morning. So I do what any Millennial would and pull out my phone and just listen to the birds.

At one point a trio of crows flew over the blind and landed in a tree near by. I had my crow call in my vest so I took it out and started calling to the 3 birds. It was amusing mimicking them and having them talk back but I think I said the wrong thing. After 5 mins or so the lead crow made a rather disgusted caw at me and the murder flew off. Back to the phone.This almost bit me in the butt.

Around 6:30 I just so happened to look up and saw something. At first I thought it was my eyes playing tricks on me but then that pale blue head popped up. My heart rate instantly goes through the roof as I try to figure out if it has a beard or not. The bird is about 80 yards out so I couldn’t tell. I sit and wait for it to get a little closer and turn broad side to check for a beard. After 15 mins the bird does exactly this. No beard just a hen. I calm down after realizing this and just relax watching the bird. She goes into the woods and comes back out on the other side of the field. Just pecking away at the grass.

The hen had moved out to 100 yards as she was feeding so I took the opportunity to try practicing my calls on a live bird that I could see. Using my box call I just do some plucks with soft yelps. Absolutely no response from the feasting hen. So I switched it up and used my pot call. I struck up some light plucks and purrs mimicking what I heard the hens do this past fall. That got it’s attention. She perked her head up looked straight at my decoy and started slowly feeding in my direction. She didn’t make any noises. Happy with this result I put the calls down and just watch. She got as close as 45 yards and just kinda hung out for an hour.

This all last until about 8 AM. It’s amazing how quickly time flys when you have a bird in the field. At this time I noticed a bird plop down on from the trees on the other side of the field. It starts walking towards my friendly hen and decoy. As this bird is about half way to us 3 more come walking out of the woods from the same location as hen #2. They also slowly feed towards me. All these birds are about the same size so I automatically assumed they where all hens.

Then after another 10 minutes a dino of a bird comes walking into the field. This bird is easily twice the size of all the hens I’ve seen this morning, so I was pretty confident it was a gobbler. He was walking straight for all the hens. I feel the adrenaline kick in and I start getting a little shaky. The gobbler enters at 182 yards and all the hens are outside of 50 yards. I took this opportunity to get the gun moved around so the barrel was outside the window and resting against my shoulder so I can easily take aim. Moving the gun was not a fast process. Turkeys have some amazing eye sight and when you have this many around, you have to move very slowly.

This gobbler wanted to be with the hens and just walked straight towards them until he gets about 80 yards of his hens. This is around 120 yards from me. The big guy starts feeding still walking towards me. Some of his harem has moved around the trench and are just to the right of me. At this point the gobbler could chose to follow the hens to the right of me or stick with the ones and my decoy in front of me where I am set up for the shot.

At the 60 yard mark he stops clearly taking stock of the harem and seeing where everyone is. This is when he notices the Spring Fling Hen. He puts his head down and starts walking over. My decoy is 12 yards ahead of me I need the gobbler to get within 40 yards. With how I have my shotgun set up I really didn’t want to take a shot further than that. There is a very green bush I messured out while setting up my decoy. If he gets past that he’s gone.

Slowly but surely he keeps walking. I’m really starting to feel the adrenaline as I start to aim my gun. He keeps walking closer to my mark as time seems to slow down. He steps over the bush and starts to stick his neck out to feed. He feeds several more steps as I wait for him to raise his head. At 31 yards he lifts his head to look at the decoy and I shoot. I didn’t hear the shot, didn’t feel the recoil just felt the break of the trigger and saw the gobbler’s head real around as he flops to the ground. Boom the bird is down and my hunt successful. The time was 8:30 AM when I walked out of the blind.

This gobbler was younger, probably 1-1/2 to 2 years old judging by his spurs. They where worn down and about a inch long. The beard was around 11 inches and he weighed 23lbs. Im going to use the breast for dinner while using the feathers and beard for a mount.

I needed this. All winter I have been trying to predator hunt without any luck. On top of the debacle of yesterday my confidence was in the mud when it comes to hunting. This really lifted my spirits and has me excited for more. This was an awesome hunt that reiterated the lesson that you have to be where your game is. It also has me not worrying about the weather reports. I’m not sure I’ll be able to get back out for this turkey season but I’m pumped for spring squirrel season and my hog hunt. Thanks for taking the time to read about my hunt and hope you get out to the woods and bag a turkey. Until next time happy hunting.

Below are some items I found helpful in this hunt. Using my link to purchase any of these items goes to helping me make more and better content.

Undertaker Turkey Vest: