Turkey hunting has been a little chilly fthe last few days, but turkeys don’t hibernate so that means they’re running around there someplace. My oldest son Normie was accompanying Rhonda and me on a turkey hunt two weeks ago, which was his first time hunting turkey.
The first two days we were going to hunt in the Pembina valley where we saw about four real nice toms the week before. We had already set up two blinds the night before because we had a 45 to 50 minute ride to our hunting spot. We sat there for two days and saw nothing but one lone hen that ran by us at about 30 miles an hour.
The birds in that area seem to be pretty mute for the most part. I was a little disappointed; I thought we would at lease get one bird out of that area. One thing for sure was that the deer in that area survived the winter pretty good, there was no shortage of them.
On the third day we were going to hunt the land that I’ve hunted on for years. The only clinch here was that three hunters just spent the last two days hunting it. It’s only a quarter section, so we didn’t know how their hunting was going to affect the birds.
Rhonda went on her own as Normie and I walked towards the small creek. It was about ten minutes before hunting so it was still quite dark out. As we got to the end of the path to an opening we heard a tom gobble. Normie looked at me to see what we were going to do; we were about sixty yards from where I wanted to be.
I told him to sit right on the edge of the path and I would sit behind him a few feet. We waited a bit before we made our first call. I glanced at my watch, right on time, legal. That first call was with a mouth diaphragm, it was a loud call to identify to the tom where we here. After that call I only use a slate call.
The opening was about 450 yards long and 50 yards wide. At the far end of this corridor we heard the noise of fluttering wings. All of a sudden this huge turkey appeared, the instant it hit the ground it started to pirouette. Its white head was right in the centre of its fanned tail. It looked like Batman.
Even at that distance a turkey’s eye site is very keen. So Normie raised his 870 up to his knees ready for the shot. The calls I made with that slate were very soft finesse type sounds. Loud calls at this distance will work against you.
When the bird got half way it started to run towards us. When it reached 40 yards it stopped and started strutting. It moved closer and then centered himself in front of Normie out of my sight. When I couldn’t see, my heart race even more. I made two more calls then Bang,
Normie was gone running towards the bird, it took me a second to get up, my leg fell asleep, no it got caught on something, or maybe I’m just slower than in my younger days. Normie was standing beside his turkey, what a site, seeing my son with his first turkey kill. What a bird too over 25 pounds with a 9 inch beard. It was a great hunt!
Norm
email: nmccreight@shaw.ca |
