A turkey hunting story

[bajadan2000]

Since it is turkey season, here is my turkey hunting story from a couple of years ago, sorry no pictures to go with it, however, this bird was just a Jake, nothing to brag about, it was how the hunt went down that still has me laughing today.

I camped in my usual spot with about 6 other turkey hunters working the same area. I had scouted up to 75 birds a day in this area a few months earlier. For the first 2 1/2 days of turkey season, all any of us could find was one hen. The turkeys had moved onto private farms that where posted. I decided to look elsewhere.

One of my good hunting and fishing buddies has 6 acres near by that is bordered by WA DNR land. He likes me to check in on his property whenever I am in the area. I have camped there many times and have taken several nice deer with a bow just behind his place, however, we had never seen a turkey there.

I pulled onto his property and took a walk around. Everything OK, time to take a nap then move out for the evening hunt. I had not been in the rack more than 5 minutes and a gobble call goes off just on the border of the DNR land. I am thinking that it had to be a Turkey hunter that saw me walking around in my camo and is just playing games with me. I listened for a good half hour of non stop gobbling. Finally I had enough and took a walk up the hill to play with the hunter. Well it was no hunter, it was a real turkey and he made me.

I spent the rest of the evening looking for that bird, thinking I had spooked him into the next county. Just about dark and heading back to my camper I heard him again, only about a 1/4 mile from my camper. Great, I love to put toms to rest and then set up on them as they fly out the next morning, my favorite turkey hunting strategy. I had a very good idea where he was roosting and looked around for a good spot to set up my decoys in the morning.

Next morning I snuck to the spot in the dark and got everything ready. Just at daylight I give a call to get the tom working. The tom answered right away, except, he had moved his roost. He was in the tree I was sitting under...darn.....

The Jake finally flew out and stayed in an opening most of the time where I could see him, but he was out of shooting range. We talked back and forth for a good 1/2 hour before he lost interest. However, he is heading back towards my buddies property. Knowing he had called from the hill above my camper the day before, I made a swing around and set up an ambush. Sure enough the Jake comes walking right into me. Took the Jake within sight of my camper.

That's turkey hunting for ya....

[BlacktailBowhunter]

Good story.