Deer & Turkey Hunting Tips

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.

The farmer had placed a large pile of chicken poop at the edge of the field to be used as fertilizer. I noticed that there was quite a bit of turkey tracks and scratchings all through the poop. I had seen turkeys in the field several times and decided to set up camp there this morning.

My brother decide to go deeper into the woods about two hundred yards from the field. The only real cover near the poop pile was a brier patch. I cut an opening in the briers and backed inside, leaning against a small sapling. Not overly comfortable but it would do.

As the sun came up and the time went by, I began yelping with no response. I looked at the time and it was 11:00am. As we were into our half-a-day hunt (12:00pm) season, I began to think this might not be the day.

Suddenly, I spotted movement across the back side of the field about 150 yards away. A turkey, no a big gobbler turkey. As I watched through my binoculars, the gobbler slowly began making his way towards my set up. And I mean slowly. The gobbler never made a sound, he would only look in my direction when I yelped.

At 11:30am, the gobbler was 50 yards out and taking his time. As he made his way to the other side of the poop pile, I began scooting up towards the edge of the brier patch. I was trying to cut down on the distance.

My brother had began heading back towards the field as the time was ticking away. He had seen the gobbler out in the field as he made his way towards me. My brother had stopped just inside the woods to my left and was watching the gobbler. He thought I was asleep because to his view point, the gobbler was directly in front of me. He kept saying to himself, why don’t he shoot, he must be sleep.

As I made my way to the edge of the briers, I knew it was close to ending time but the gobbler wouldn’t come any closer. I rested my shotgun on my knee, and pulled the trigger. Bang. The gobbler rolled over.

My brother ran up to the turkey before I did and yelled “it’s about time, I thought you were sleep.” The shot ended up being 45 yards. The turkey weighed 25 pounds, had one and a quarter inch spurs, and a 10.5 inch beard. I was happy to smell like chicken poop the rest of the day.