First Ever Turkey Hunt

[OneLastCast]

Okay!!!!!
This is it.
My first turkey hunt. My wife bought a guided hunt for me for Christmas and tomorrow morning I leave for Medford. The guide sounds excellent. No guarantee because he does'nt feed them but I'm going there to learn to hunt so I don't mind. (Safeway guarantees turkeys) He did send me an email telling me that even though turkeys can't smell, guides can, so bring extra underwear. I think I am going to like this guy.

The best sign....our dogs chased two turkeys out of the yard this evening. Who knows what they were but I am going to kill me a gobbler in the next few days.

OneLastCast

[fishinbuddy]

Nothing like hearing the woods come alive! Have fun out there! And let us know how you do? Good Luck! :grin:

[TheRogue]

Best way to hunt turkeys in the Rogue/Applegate valleys....peoples orchards or front yards. Too much poison oak to do it any other way!!

Have a great time, and learn something!!

[Bait O' Eggs]

How did you do?? You didnt get them undies dirty when a turkey answered the call did you? :shocked: :shocked:

[OneLastCast]

Hello Honey....I'm Home.

Well I came home empty handed and with clean underwear to spare. But it was not for a lack of trying.

I hunted with Ric Timm of Timm's Outfitters. He leases 25000 acres of land for hunting and if poison oak ever becomes a cash crop someone is going to be a multi-millionaire. Ric did a great job of guiding and I don't believe any guide works harder getting his client into a Turkey. The hunting style was essentialy "go to the Turkeys" rather than wait for them. We probably hiked 15 to 20 miles in the 2 1/2 days of hunting. We hunted daylight to dark with stops for meals. We would hike from drainage swale to drainage swale blowing a "shock" call hoping for an answering gobble. I asked Ric if he was really a guide or just a guy who had a fantasy of running around in the woods being chased by two sweaty fat guys.
The turkeys were not always cooperative, often they would answer the initial call but would never respond after that. At one point we were all hunkered down listening to 6 different gobblers answering our call but none of them would come in. They eventually dispersed up several drainages and we couldn't locate them again.
I think I was the one who screwed up our best chance. We had a hot turkey responding and sounding like he was coming in fast. Ric set up Don and myself in different corridors but I stopped to kick away the poison oak so I could sit down. I think the bird must have spotted me because we never heard or saw the bird after we setup.
The last morning we had the "perfect" setup and the turkey gobbled at us for a least 45 minutes. But never came in. It finally wandered off.

All in all it was a great hunt. I learned a lot of valuable information that will help me to hunt these birds by myself. And I can't say enough about Ric Timm. That guy is a marathon runner and worked extremely hard to get us into birds. I could tell he was getting frustrated at the lack of response but he just kept going. My thanks to the guide.

Now I will go out and get one by myself.

OneLastCast