April 16, 2007
Kevin
and I had a successful trip! We arrived at the ranch around
9:30 opening day (Saturday) and expected just to set up camp and
scout for the evening, but when we arrived we had birds in the
field, headed for the open gate on the west side of the alfalfa
field, so we parked at the western drive on the crops, scrambled
north and east behind the trees, and set up underneath some brush a
couple hundred yards north and west of the gate. We called for
a bit, and were close to packing up and moving on, but before
quitting we managed to peel off two nice jakes and moments later I
had my first bird and Kevin had his gobbler down as well!
We
spent the rest of the day bow hunting and came across one additional
bird but couldn’t get close. We had a great time watching deer
(and a skunk) and ducks out at the ponds and later set the blind
back over by the open gate near the alfalfa fields for the following
morning. Camp was great, and around sunset we watched 14
turkeys fly into their roosting trees and we listened to some
awesome gobbling for an hour or so. We ate some good grub,
enjoyed a couple of Guinness, and hit the sack for Sunday morning.
Unfortunately it got pretty cold late that Saturday evening (evening
temp reached 29 degrees) so the sleeping was a little difficult but
at 4:00 a.m. we were up and eventually hiking up the road toward the
blind.
Our
morning in the blind was pretty outrageous. We had 4 or 5 deer
in the field early, a cackling rooster pheasant in the alfalfa in
front of us, and finally some turkey headed straight for the gate.
We had our three decoys 10 yards between us and the gate, and I was
optimistic a group of 5 jakes were going to come straight to our dekes, but they gobbled their way up to the gate and decided for
some reason they did not want to come any closer. At this
point I sort of panicked and took at shot at one around 20 yards
away. It was not a bad shot, but not perfect, and for a moment
I though the bird was hit because he popped a couple of feet in the
air, but then he wandered off with his mates seemingly un-hit.
We called to keep the jakes interested but they filed their way back
east across the alfalfa and things were quiet for a while. A
while later, a hen came from our left and wandered around the fence.
We were pumped to have a live decoy 20 yards away and I guess it
played out pretty well because she eventually met up with a really
nice tom to our right (we don’t know where he came from). This
got the 5 jakes interested again because just as the hen and the tom
were filing their way toward the gate, the jakes came running back
across the field and once again made their way right up to the gate.
At this point, though, the tom was our target so I waited, and this
seemed to be a bad decision because the tom, hen and jakes left to
our right (toward the wheat field) and looked to be headed away.
We peeked out the sides and back of the blind and noticed, though,
that the tom was actually making a circle around the blind. He
made his way north and then back east and we were calling, but he
seemed to be losing interest and as he headed away and toward the
corner I convinced myself this might be my last shot. I let an
arrow fly (at what later was determined to be about a 50 yard
target) and I saw the arrow miss a little over the back of the bird.
The tom was not startled, but continued to make his way east along
the edge of the alfalfa and away from us, and it looked clear it was
game over. When
the tom was a few hundred yards away Kevin started calling very
aggressively (he’ll have to described exactly what he was doing).
This got the attention of the tom, and he stopped, and after a few
minutes, amazingly, turned and made his way back in our direction!
Kevin continued the super-aggressive calling and the bird came to us
and reached the fence. At this point things were looking great
and my heart started pounding when the huge bird crossed the fence -
but instead of coming toward the dekes, he looked like he wanted to
circle them (so was moving away a bit). I guess in retrospect
I should have waited and let Kevin work the bird some more, but I
was figuring at this point I had a 18-22 yard shot that could get
longer if I waited, so I had to take it. The bird was
strutting and all fanned out and gave me a broadside view and I
beaded on him and let off what I though was a pretty good shot but I
missed (we did not see the arrow fly so are unsure where I missed).
I reached for my (ugghh) last arrow, loosed it off and missed (again
unsure where it went). We sat there, looked at my empty quiver
(sound familiar, Andy?), and watched the bird strut around us for a
few minutes and make his way behind the blind. At this point I
made a mad dash for my first arrow (in the alfalfa field). Found it
and returned to the blind - but the tom was gone. Hunt over.
Interestingly, the recovered arrow had blood all over it. We
are still scratching our heads at how the jake was clearly hit but
unfazed and able to wander three times across the fields with his
mates. We found a severed wing feather where I shot so one of
you guys may have a thought as to where I likely hit him. Anyway, the whole experience, minus the misses, was phenomenal.
We had tons of gobbling all around us in the morning, deer,
pheasants, ducks. The works. The weather was spectacular
and we took advantage of the day after the hunting to plant 100
sumacs. It was all pretty good! Mike
Phone (303)
809-4973