Dad's Turkey Stories

Dad was pretty excited about turkey hunting....here's his story - geez Dad, you sound like the turkey from these stories!

Day 1 of Jeremy Hunting

With Harley and Emersyn in tow, we drove up to Merry’s Bay to set Jeremy on a likely looking roost site for the afternoon.  I continued on with the two girls with a combined age of 4, guessing that their attention spans wouldn’t be conducive to bagging a gobbler. 

After glassing for an hour with two rambunctious girls; one who was content to run up and down the boat ramp and the other that decided that rocks looked good to eat; I had spotted a group of 7 turkeys on the hill.  I was too far away to decide if they were gobblers or not, but definitely turkeys nonetheless.

On the way home, we drove by Jeremy’s siege and spotted a gobbler working down the hill to him only 200 yards from his set-up.  Jeremy would later tell us that this gobbler only made another 50 yards after we saw him and flew up into a tree just over a 100 yards away – afternoon One – bust!

Day 2 Jeremy

Of course, we awoke at 3:45 am, to be greeted to the pitter patter of rain on the roof.  Great!  Back downstairs to find raingear.

Donning our raingear, we launched the boat and started on a 20-minute ride through the inky blackness.  The rain pelted down at us as the boat chugged along.  The morning was so dark that I had to keep glancing behind to make sure we somewhere between the shorelines of the reservoir.  We made it to our drop point, and luckily after 5 minutes of digging for the spotlight, we were only 50 yards from the trail – that was a good guess!

We trudged up the trail in the dark through several blow downs and lot of rose hips.  I guess I forgot to mention that I had only looked at this spot through binoculars the night before!  When the trail opened up into a grassy meadow, I looked up to see lights in front of me, almost like a small city…….hmmm……wait, that is a small city; of 25 sets of eyeballs!

For a moment, Jeremy and I looked at each other hoping that we hadn’t been surrounded by a hungry wolf pack.  Fortunately, even in Idaho, man eating wolf packs are more myth than reality and these deer turned and fled the meadow as we continued on.

 We reached a likely looking spot above the meadow and spent 20 minutes trying to find the perfect tree.  We settled for some low bushes and sat down to wait. 

After what seemed like an eternity, we heard a gobble a long ways off back down from where we had just walked.  Ughh!!  Five minutes later, a pair of deer walked into our set-up and got down wind.  Of course, the deer winded us and started blowing to alarm the forest. 

Fortunately, no one told the 5 gobblers that we set-up underneath that this was a warning to run!  A chorus of 5 gobbles drowned out the blowing deer rather nicely.  Game on!  Despite the steady rain, the birds continued to gobble over and over again for the next 20 minutes even responded to a few soft hen yelps from my mouth call……I did mention it was pouring at this point, right?

Anyhow, the birds hit the ground, and do what turkeys do best, shut-up and disappeared – of course!  Luckily, after 15 minutes, Jeremy turned around and spotted them out in the field.  Of course, with them all looking like drowned crows, it was hard to tell if any of the 12 were gobblers.  Fortunately, with a couple of seductive yelps, the lead bird headed our way.  He started to hang up (or so I thought), so I started backing out and calling. 

Unfortunately, the bird saw me move and started to spook.  Luckily, Jeremy was already on him, and dropped him with one shot.  When the bird dropped, the rest of the flock came at a dead run to see what had happened.  Not wanting to miss opportunity (remember when opportunity knocks, knock it down!), I quickly scurried up to the nearest tree and got ready.

I didn’t have to wait long before a long beard poked his head out.

Ka-boom!!  The gun went off, but the bird didn’t drop!  The rest of the flock scattered now, as the hit turkey took off running.  I was so caught up in the flurry of activity that I didn’t even realize that Jeremy was shooting as well.  Tufts of feathers were flying everywhere off the bird and finally he went down in a heap in the field.  I ran over to him, cursing somewhat that these hevi-shot loads still require aiming, and looked back to see where Jeremy’s bird was. 

Of course, Jeremy saw the entire thing unfold.  As I ran up to the tree, the birds were coming up to peck the fallen gobbler.  The thunder of 11 other turkeys running towards the downed bird took him out of his unconscious; I’ve just been shot, state, and sent him jumping back up off the ground.  That’s when I saw him stick his head out and missed.  He then crossed back behind the tree and Jeremy and I sawed off 3 more rounds at him (hence all the feathers flying) until he fell into another heap!  So much for a double!  And Jeremy was out of shells!  Good thing his tag was filled!

I couldn’t resist half-heartedly chasing a couple more gobbles, but after about an hour, the rain had gotten the best of us.  Of course, most of our rain woes were due to Jeremy’s $2.99 Wal-mart rain parka that now looked like some sort of leafy gear jacket after it shredded on the rose hips on the way up! Needless to say, the boat ride home was COLD!!!!

After some warm showers and steelhead fishing we were ready for an early night – I did mention that turkey hunting starts at 3:45 am, right?

Day 3 Jeremy Turkey hunting

Day 3 started on a brand new spot.  We hiked back into the back of a meadow and set-up to listen.  After awhile, we hear an eerie call across the darkness. It took a minute to register, elk! 

After listening to the herd of elk move off, we realized that we hadn’t heard a single gobble.  So much for the new spot.  We finally heard a bird way off. We cut the distance by 500 yards, and it still sounded like it is was in the next township!  Time to try something else!

We backtracked to the meadow and tried another direction.  I didn’t take long to find some birds.  We made a set-up in some short pines overlooking a skid trail. Unfortunately, we didn’t set-up close enough to the skid trail, and the 2 gobblers and 7 hens skirted our set-up at 80 yards.  Just as they past, I caught a movement to my left as a gobbler snuck in behind us.  Of course, he saw me as soon as I saw him, it was now or never, so I let fly with another 3 ½ inch mag and rolled him at 35 yards.  7 am and we had our second gobbler on the ground in two mornings!

After several other busted encounters for the morning, we decided to head back home to re-group. That 3:45 am wake-up call was starting to take a toll!

It didn’t take long to hatch a plan to head back in the boat to Jeremy’s meadow.  We got into the spot about 3 pm and quickly spotted a huge gobbler across the canyon from us.  He would have to wait for another day, because even with 4 hours of daylight, we would have had a tough time reaching him before dark!

We set-up near a good looking strutting area and settled in for a long wait.  Of course, I started to doze off, woke up every 20 minutes or so to call for a little while.  After about 45 minutes, we started hearing a gobbler way down below us, but he didn’t sound like he was moving.  Back to sleep for me……..

When I woke up startled, it took a second realize what had happened.  While I was dreaming away, a bearded hen had snuck into the opening and Jeremy had shot; waking me up!  Awesome!  Three turkeys in two days!  Can’t get much better than that!

North Dakota or Bust!

The next morning, Amber, Harley, Emersyn and I started our trek back to North Dakota.  We made it to Bozeman when the snow started.  Really?  Snow in April?  Luckily, it only last for 200 miles (yes, 200 miles; Montana is big!), and things were dry in Sydney, Montana where we stopped to stay with Amber’s brother for the night.

The next day I headed to Bismarck to meet up with BJ for our trip to Fort Yates.  Unfortunately, I talked to Brother Will on the way, and he wasn’t going to be able to make it – still in New York – bummer!

11 Degrees!

BJ and I headed out the next morning at 4:15 am (that’s like sleeping in for turkey hunting – except for the two hour time change!), and got down to a spot we hunted the year before.  The only difference was, a year earlier, it was 40 F, and this morning, it was 11 degrees and snow everywhere!  Wow!

Despite the cold temps, we heard the birds gobbling like crazy down near the river, and headed that direction.  Almost by fate, we set-up underneath the exact cottonwood where I had shot my first gobbler last year.  Unfortunately, the birds were all roosted on the other side of the river from us. 

We started into a pretty aggressive calling sequence to see if we could get a bird across, and sure enough, a bird sailed across the river right to us.  Unfortunately, the tree we picked was in a hole, so by the time I realized it was a stud of a gobbler, he had slipped over the rise at 35 yards.  Right behind him sailed 20 hens and jakes that also slipped over the rise and out of site.

By now, we were thinking we were in good shape with so many hens on our side of the river, but the toms just kept gobbling from the other side.  Finally, after another 30 minutes, we got another bird to cross and he came in behind us to 20 yards…..

But, we could not get him to come the entire way up the bank, so I couldn’t decide if it was a jake or a tom. Not wanting to burn my first tag on an unknown, I held off on several slam dunk shots at 20 yards.  Finally after 5 minutes of pacing behind us at 20 to 30 yards, the gobbler had enough and went back across the river.  Of course, once he crossed into the open, we could see he was a beard dragging toad – go figure, the old, smart ones never fully commit – right.  Hind sight 20/20!

To shorten up the story, we spent the rest of the morning, trying to make plays on the 20 hens and jakes that had hooked up with 2 nice gobblers.  At one point, we had the entire flock at 50 yards, but those two gobblers didn’t want to commit any further, and I couldn’t find a clean shot.  We did manage to call 4 jakes into 5 yards, but like I said, first day, and first tag…….

Sooo, feeling a little defeated, we jumped in the truck to try to track down permission at another ranch.  Luckily, we stopped at a spot and got permission pretty easily, in fact the landowner’s daughter offered to call him at work to get permission.  Not sure what BJ had up his sleeve on that one, but hey, it worked!

We drove down to our new honey hole, and looked out to see 4 gobblers and 5 jakes milling around at high noon with no hens in site.  Looked like a slam dunk, until they started running when we turned the car around………hmmm…….

With nothing else going, we looped around to make a set-up which took about an hour.  While we were creeping, I was convinced I heard a gobble in front of us (whoops, that was actually behind us!), so we set-up near a brush patch where we had last spotted the birds.

We spiked out a jake and hen decoy and got to work calling.  I picked probably the worst spot in the world to sit, tucked into some brush on a sidehill.  We heard a gobble behind us, and BJ picked the bird out over 500 yards away coming up through a field.  When he dropped into a dip, I made a 10-foot move to get a better spot to sit, but picked one worse than my first spot.  Now I was pinned down balanced on one butt cheek and trying not to move as the gobbler closed 500 yards in a matter of 10 minutes.

Fortunately, when he hit the decoys he went into a “I’m going to tear the tar out of this jake” trance, so I was able to completely shift around to get a 45 yard shot – remember, we were expecting the birds from the other direction.

Amazingly, the hevi-shot load completely crumpled this bird at 45 yards, he never twitched.  But, as I jumped up to go grab him, BJ hissed, “sit down, there’s three more!”

Sure enough, three gobblers had been watching this bird come into the jake decoy, saw him fall, and now they were tripping over themselves running up to the set-up.

So now, I had gotten myself pinned into the third worst position I’ve ever sat in turkey hunting with three gobblers on the way.  Luckily, they were so hypnotized by the thought of thrashing the jake and the downed gobbler, that I was still able to pull the gun up and dump another bird at 45 yards in the decoys. 

The other two gobblers, paused for a minute and then took off – good thing I was out of tags, or I may have run out of shells there!

Unbelievable!  Two gobblers on the same set-up in a matter of minutes, and both laying within 5 feet of each other!  I was on cloud nine, and didn’t even notice carrying both birds out the ½ mile back to the car!

Now What?

We got back to the car around 2 pm and headed off to see if we could find permission on land BJ’s tag was good for.  Unfortunately, after a couple of contacts, we weren’t having any luck and more huntable ground was a couple hours away.  So, inevitably after some major arm twisting, I found myself back at the Game and Fish office buying another permit (two tags per permit). 

Armed with a fresh license, we headed out to find some new ground.  As luck would have it, we found a farmer home that we had missed earlier, and he said “go ahead, but you aren’t the first group in here.”

Well, regardless if we weren’t the first group, we parked the car and as soon as we poked our heads over the hill there was a group of turkeys in sight – wow!  So, we made a loop around to get onto the edge of the cow pasture, trying not to send a Black Angus running right into the birds.  As luck would have it, the cows stayed put and we got set-up.

We started a series of yelps and purrs, and not a minute later BJ hissed, “Here they come!”

I looked up to see 6 birds flying (yes, flying!), into our set-up!  They glided down at 30 yards and I could see they were all hens. However, right behind, running for all he was worth, was a beard dragging gobbler.  You could just see his look of “wait for me!”   And of course, my shotgun was laying on the ground since I still had my slate call in my hands.  Wow, they come in fast in North Dakota!

So BJ was getting some great video of the gobbler at 35 yards, and I was trying to figure out how I was going to get my gun up on this bird with nothing but cow pasture between me and him.  Of course, after a few minutes, BJ couldn’t figure out why I hadn’t shot, so he thought I might need a call to move the bird.  At the same time, I had finally slipped the gun up, and gave the bird a quick cluck with my mouth, then KA-BOOM!  And, we missed the ending on video – it was textbook, trust me!

So, now, for the day, we had called in two gobblers in the morning, passed 4 jakes, called in 4 more gobblers, and shot two, and had called in 6 flying hens and a gobbler, and shot another, for three gobblers on the ground!   And that’s all on day one.

And of course, it still wasn’t dark, so we stashed the most recent gobbler, and headed down the valley.  You guessed it, we rounded the next bend, and there was a group of birds.  So we dropped down into the creek bottom to make some ground.  Unfortunately, we made just a little bit too much ground, and we came out at 10 yards from two birds, that were both obviously jakes or toms, but again, I’m thinking, I just got 3 gobblers, I don’t want to burn a tag on a jake.  So I passed.

We backed out and called, but they slipped just 25 yards on the other side of us, and that was the end of the set-up. And, of course, it was two really nice long beards when they popped out at 100 yards. We made a couple more sets, including one roost set, that had 2 gobblers at 75 yards, but didn’t connect.  Still, can’t complain on three gobblers on the first day!

North Dakota Day 2

Day 2 started back on the same river where we started on Day 1, and the turkeys acted almost the same way.  We got a bunch of birds to cross, and called in 4 jakes, but couldn’t get a gobbler to commit.  The difference of Day 2, was the wind was starting to pick up and was forecasted to 25 mph with snow by mid-morning!

So we headed back to where I had shot bird number 3 the day before, and sure enough, we poked our head over the hill and there were more birds, two gobblers and 5 hens.  They dipped into a low spot in the cow pasture, and we belly crawled out to within 75 yards.  The plan was to spike the decoys above us and shoot laying down.

Well, this is when our good luck finally started to run out.  Just as we got the decoys set and started to call, we heard a four wheeler from behind us.  The rancher was coming down to check his cows.  I can only imagine what he thought looking at two camo-clad weirdo’s laying in the middle of cowpies with turkey decoys over their heads. 

In any case, the turkeys got nervous and headed over the next hill.  So, after things quieted down, we took off in pursuit to put together another set-up.  When we got to the crest, and set the decoy up, we realized the birds were right in front of us.  The decoy may have slowed them up a bit, I’m not sure, but when opportunity knocks, sometimes you’ve got to knock it down – especially if your weather forecast is for a blizzard. 

So gobbler number 4 fell to another round of hevi-shot at 40 yards, without much calling, okay so no calling, but we did have a decoy, so I’m counting it as a semi-ambush. 

Recap

Last year, I was super fortunate to harvest 5 turkeys in the spring, 2 in Idaho, 2 in North Dakota and 1 in Montana.  I was pretty sure I’d never top that.  Well, this year, I got 6 gobblers between Idaho and North Dakota in less than a week’s time!  It might be time to retire from turkey hunting!

Wait, is that another gobble I hear behind the house…………..Let’s go!