Turkey Hunting can be Crappy....Literally!!!!

[PotashRLS]

Well, after 3 hard days of hunting, things were looking pretty grim. I didn't see a bird till Friday and the Gobbler wouldn't leave a lone hen he followed out. The rest of the day was uneventful with a few sightings of nesting hens who would only leave the nest for a short time before returning.

So I called up Gary, fellow Learn To Hunt organizer, to see what honey holes he had left. Gary takes lots of kids and adults out turkey hunting and puts more effort into killing turkeys than anyone I have ever known. He had his old reliable honey hole we could go to so we made plans to meet the next morning. The next morning (Saturday) we headed to a nearby honey hole on a neighboring farm. Turns out the birds are using a manure stockpile during the daytime to scratch, dust around, and strut. Gary asked me what I thought of setting the double bull up on the manure piles. I told him I thought it was a crappy idea. We did see 5 Toms and a few hens in the morning but nothing close. 2 Toms did start our way but were clearly low on the pecking order as they didn't like our Jake decoy and skirted well out of range. We watched them get run off earlier by 3 large Toms courting a hen in the corn field. Once noon rolled around Gary decided to go down the field edge to an old corn crib that is used as a deer blind. They have killed birds from that crib before. So the afternoon rolls on with no birds sighted between 11:30 and 4:30. I did have one hen come up and pick at the flies that were continuously buzzing around my nice cozy manure pile at 4:30. Then around 5:00 two nice Toms come through the alfalfa field to the edge of the new corn field and fed right to me. I had my bow and actually drew on the lead bird as he was going to pass between the crests of two poo piles. He instead walked part way up a pile and only presented a head/neck shot. I only needed to see the beard and would have had enough of a target for a shot, but he stayed obstructed. He got down and the two started clucking and purring so I did it back hoping to draw one into the open for an arrow. Instead they started to leave down the corn edge so I set the bow down, picked up the Mossberg 835 and waited for the closest one to clear the peak of the manure in front of me. I had to stand up into the window to get over the manure and BOOM. Crap flew.....literally. The bird dropped and his buddy didn't know what to do. My bird flopped a little into the alfalfa and lay still. He seemed like he was dead but 10 minutes later he picked his head up and took a couple steps so I pasted him one more. I didn't leave the blind as Gary was putting the moves on a HUGE Gobbler as he strutted behind a hen in the field. That big bird followed two hens almost within gun range of my manure blind but like the other two, didn't like something and started feeding into the alfalfa. Meanwhile Gary is putting the sneak on them through the alfalfa and ends up missing this bird twice. We followed up on where he flew to and found nothing............other than 3 nice Toms courting 3 hens on the backside of where we were set up. Gary had my gun because he only had 1 shell left for his 10 ga. He ended up getting a poke at the closest bird, tipped him over, and saw him run into the trees. We followed up on him and saw him running ahead of us toward where we started from. Gary ran to cut him off but he was gone. We looked and found a freshly knocked down trail in the tall alfalfa at the end of which was a live Tom Turkey. So before he could run again, Gary finished him and our long afternoon was over. My bird was 20.5 lbs, had a 10" beard and 7/8 & 13/16" spurs. Gary's was pretty close to the same as mine other than a tad shorter spurs. We had quite a day. Sorry for the long story. If you read all of this, it was still shorter than my sit on top of the manure pile.






What would you do for a Gobbler? Would you breathe methane and swat flies for 13 hours?

[Jorden]

Congrats to both of you...both good birds

[dbHunterNY]

I guess you just have to do what it is you have to do, to get a gobbler. Congrats on the birds.

[Ohiobucks]

What would you do for a Gobbler? Would you breathe methane and swat flies for 13 hours?

I'm going to be honest with ya, probably not.

Congrats to both of you though, great birds!

[Rhino]

What would you do for a Gobbler? Would you breathe methane and swat flies for 13 hours?

Nope...sure wouldn't but I might try the upwind side in the alfalfa.

Congrats to both of you for sucking it up and sticking it out. Nice birds!

[Bowtech_archer07]

Congrats to both of you! Sounds like an awesome hunt!

[ccwhitey]

Congrats on the birds

[HuntnMa]

whatever it takes, huh ? lol congrats !!!!

[turkeygirl]

Congrats on a great hunt! Sometimes turkeys make us step out of the box, literally,lol!

[woolybear]

Beautiful bird under such crappy conditions! congrats
Never hunted 'nure piles, but fresh spread gets 'em buggin out just the same! WTG

[WHISKEYSWAMP]

great hunt... congrats!

[BAMABUCKS]

Congrats to both of you. Glad you don't eat their feet.

[longbeardfever4ever]

I'm going to be honest with ya, probably not.

Congrats to both of you though, great birds!

Heck, the most ive sat for birds before is 5-6 hours, thanks to hunting till 12 only!! LOL

Congrats!

[redkneck]

Congratulations Tracy! I cant say what I won't do when i got a visual on one, it's mighty hard to leave when your watching a good one. And I thought i was the only one that carried a gun and bow hunting sometimes.