Deer & Turkey Hunting Tips

Ever been turkey hunting and had those picture or video moments where everything worked according to plans? Well although we have had quite a few of those, there are just as many if not more that didn’t turn out the way it was expected. This is one of those stories.

As we stepped onto one of the ridges at daybreak, we heard the sounds of gobblers among us. Now any turkey hunter loves to hear these gobbles first thing in the morning. We decided to pick the gobbler that was the closest and began our assault. My brother hit the slate call a few times and received a welcomed gobble response. This went on for forty five minutes and then the gobbler went away from us never to be seen or heard again.

No problem, we have plenty of time. We picked up on another gobbler and headed his way. On our second set up, we carried on another conversation with Mr Gobbler number two for an hour. Again we were skunked.

We located our third gobbler and set up again. Yelp-yelp, gobble, gobble, gobble. But again after another hour had passed – nothing.

Now on one hand we had some heavy action, but on the other hand, not so good results. By mid day, we had stopped on the top of one of the ridges, got a bite to eat and regrouped.

Shortly afterwards, we made contact with gobbler number four. We made a very long path to get to him. As we set up on him, the fourth gobbler seemed happy to make our acquaintances. Unfortunately, he locked up on us about seventy five yards out. Back and forth we went. And then like our three previous encounters, the hunt ended with nothing.

As the time went by, we decided that we needed to start heading back towards the truck. Since we had been very active, we had walked about three miles from the truck. We decided that the most direct way path back was by way of the river bank.

About three quarters of the way back, my brother lost his footing and slipped into the edge of the river. The barrel of his shotgun went into the moody river bank along with him getting soaked. Now we both got a good laugh out of the situation. He climbed back onto dry ground and decided to sit for a few minutes. He had to clean out his barrel and we would be back on our way.

As we were sitting there laughing, my brother cut loose with his mouth call a few times. A few minutes later, to our surprise, a turkey flew towards us and landed in the tree just above our head. Yes, that would be gobbler number five.

Now we don’t shoot turkeys out of trees but we had to laugh at the situation. The turkey stayed for fifteen minutes and then flew away. We both looked at each other, shook our heads, laughed, and walked back to the truck.

We had a great day. Lots of action and lots of laughs

Opening morning of turkey season was met with great anticipation. My brother and I made our way through the woods in the dark to a predetermined location. We had located a roosting area and had been watching the flock of turkeys for two weeks prior.

We reached our destination with relative ease and set up our gear. After everything had settled down, you could tell that we were both excited about the possibilities.

As we waited for day light, we noticed that the sun seemed to be rising awfully slow. The temperature was in the fifties with a forecast of mid seventies and sunny. As time went by, we realized that it should have already have been daylight but it wasn’t.

We kept looking at each other and our watches. We joked to each other that the sun must have over slept. As we waited a slight breeze came drifting in.

Suddenly, a few rain drops began slowly falling. We both had puzzled looks on our faces. The rain started to pick up. Then the bottom dropped out and it was pouring a cold rain.

We decided to make our way over to a blind that we use during deer season to wait out the rain. By the time we made it to the blind we were both soaked.

As we sat inside, we both started laughing. We began joking back and forth about the situation. The longer we sat, the harder it rained. After two hours, the rain had finally stopped and the sun popped out. We decided to start back to our original location.

About half way back, we heard what we thought was a turkey. We stopped for a moment looking around. Suddenly, the trees came alive with feather ruffling. Turkeys began flying off their roost in several directions. We had walked right up amongst them. Busted.

We spent the remainder of the day trying to get back up with them. Yeah right.

That evening, we sat down to watch the late news. We wanted to see if they said anything about our morning rain. The weatherman tried to play it of by joking about the unpredicted down pours throughout the morning. Oops!

While preparing for the following mornings turkey hunt, the decision was made to hit the old honey hole one more time. We had taken many turkeys over the years at this farm and so it had become one of our favorites. We would only hunt the farm when our other spots did not pan out, that way we wouldn’t over harvest.

As the morning hunt began, we headed down to one of the smaller grassy fields near the edges of a hardwoods grove. We put out our decoys and waited for daylight. As the sun rose and the sounds of nature began, we were greeted with several good morning gobbles.

We responded with a few yelps just to let them know we were there. A few minutes later, we heard several more gobbles about two hundred yards out into the hardwoods. We stepped up the excitement level of the mouth call and the gobbles kept a coming. There were two toms responding.

They were both off to our right. As the gobbles continued, the two toms were moving in closer to one another. They came together about one hundred yards out. Now they were really making some noise.

The two turkeys entered the edge of the field together, looked our way, and started running towards the decoys. About half way in they stopped, blowed up and began their final approach.

Now I tell you, this was an awesome sight. One that as a turkey hunter, you never get tired of seeing. Gobble, gobble, strut, strut, all the way to the decoys.

Now we had set out two hens and a jake. The two gobblers ran over to the jake decoy, lowered their feathers, and began to put the smack down on the jake decoy. They jumped on top of the decoy, kicked it over, and stood on top of it.

Now this would have been one of those cool video moments if we would have had a video recorder. But it was neat to watch anyway. The decoy was cut in several places with scar marks.

After all the excitement, we were able to harvest both gobblers. Both eighteen pounds, one 10 inch and one 10.5 inch beards. one inch spurs.

As we made our way around, we set up at the top of the ridge in the direction that the tom was moving. We were three ridges away. Yelp yelp- gobble gobble.

The turkey came over the first ridge still headed our way. Yelp yelp-gobble, gobble, gobble. Two ridges and closing. Yelp-gobble, gobble, gobble. The tom was at the bottom of our ridge. Yelp-gobble, gobble. He was cutting us off in mid yelp with explosive gobbles.

As the tom made his way up our ridge, we were both focused as there was quite a bit of under growth giving tom plenty of cover. The tom started towards me and then towards my brother, back and forth for fifteen minutes. Yelp, yelp, gobble, gobble, gobble. Bang.

My brother. 7:15am. 19 pounds, 10.5 inch beard, 1 inch spurs. My heart is still pounding. Sometimes it just works out.