More NY youth season success...

**western NY bowhunter** · 04-29-2008, 01:32 PM

Just uploaded these pics. onto my computer so I thought that I'd share them.

Here's a shortened version of this past weekends action...

Saturday:

Set up first light in a couple of ground blinds that my uncle set out friday night on the edge of a field where a bunch of longbeards have been hanging out. Heard several birds gobbling on the hillside above us. Started hammering on the mouthcall and one of them started heading our way. He ended up coming within 30 yds. of the blind but we weren't able to get a shot off and he got kinda spooky and went back up in the woods. Half hour or so later we were on 2 more longbeards that were strutting out in a plowed field. I worked them for prob. 45 minutes. They were at 70-80 yds and closing the distance ever so slowly when my uncle's father-in- law (the kids grandfather/owner of the farm) came driving out through the field on his tractor sending the birds back the other way. Had to call it quits for the day at 8:00.

Sunday:

Hunted the other end of the farm. Decided to try our luck in a secluded hayfield that looked promising. Set out b-mobile and a couple of hen decoys and sat tight waiting for the gobbling to start. A little before 6:00 several gobblers sound off in the distance...but they weren't gobbling very much. Several minutes later a jake plops down out of one of trees on the edge of the field about 150 yds away. He starts strutting and gobbling but won't pay any attention to my calling. A half hour goes by and the kids are starting to get restless. Finally, I get the unseen hen that he's strutting for to answer my calling and she starts heading our way with her little punk suitor in toe. I tell the kids that its a jake but if they wanna shoot him one of them had better get their guns ready...both of them were ready to rock. The jake came strutting into the decoy set-up at 20 yds. I gave the signal to shoot...the gun goes off and he disappears into a cloud of feathers. To top it off, we got the whole hunt on video. I've killed/watched alot of turkeys getting killed over the years but I can't remember one going down any harder than this one did...he never even twitched.

Tried for the next couple of hours to get his brother a bird. We had a longbeard come into 40 yds and I thought we were gonna get him but he was in some thick stuff and we never got a clear shot and he headed back the way he came from. Twenty minutes and a couple hundred yards down the hill further we had 4 gobblers come in and hang up 50-60 yds. below us. Just couldn't get them to come that last 25 yds. Dang it...so close to closing the deal...just not close enough.

So...we went 1 for 2, had several really close calls on big ole longbeards and I had a blast getting out for the first hunts of the year. I can't wait to take them back out next year. The youth season sure is a blast.

Bring on Thursday morning!!!