Another King Falls!

Now that I have a bird tagged, it's George's turn to hunt, and I'm the cameraman, and if necessary, a backup caller.

George has had a roost near his house under surveillance and knows of several longbeards, jakes, and hens using it on a regular basis. These are extremely vocal birds, gobbling furiously in the morning and the evening at everything from turkey talk, to geese honking, to the horn from the periodically passing trains. I've never heard birds gobble so much!

The birds roost on a steep hillside, nearly a cliff, above a local trout stream on a friends property. They get hunted a lot, but George and I have confidence that we can still scratch a bird or 2 out of this roost.

The evening before our first hunt in the area, I go over to George's house and we sneak in to put the birds to bed. This is also done so I can get a feel of the land, where the birds typically are, and where the roost is located. Our setup the next morning proved unfruitful, though George did have an opportunity at a jake, and changed the way we hunted these birds for the rest of the season.

Our next time after these birds, we came in from the opposite direction, and I REALLY thought we were going to score. Right from the get go, we had several toms gobbling at everything we threw at them. We were set up in a field corner, within 100 yards of the roost, right where we'd had the opportunity at the jake a few days prior.

We had a lone gobbler cross the entire width of the field, ignoring our lone hen decoy (though gobbling constantly) and staying well out of range, when it was barely light out. Shortly after, a lone hen came out from where he had disappeared to and while George is watching him come out and cross the field chasing her, I am watching a jake (I think) slip in silently behind us and scope us out for a minute or 2 before skirting our position and heading to where we heard several other birds still gobbling.

I start calling along with George, and before long, I have the tom in the field with the hen all fired up and 2 more birds coming from the original gobbling location! We're smack in the middle of the ruckus with a hen decoy out and I figure once the pair of toms hit the field, it'll be a foot race to see who can get to us first! WRONG!

Two of the biggest birds I've ever seen appear on the edge of the field, gobbling like fools, and immediately start running...right to the lone tom with the hen!!! They completely ignored our hen!

After watching them run the lone tom and hen out of the field, I figured they wanted a fight. So, I broke out my gobble call and mixed that in with my cutting that they've been gobbling at the whole time. They keep right on gobbling, coming back into view WITH their former adversary, and the 3 of them walk right back across the field the way they'd come, again ignoring our lone hen!

I couldn't believe it, but they steadily moved off, their gobbles getting less frequent and further away. We packed it in and headed to work.

After another failed attempt at hunting these birds, we finally got it right!

Setting up again the field corner, we put out 2 hens and 1 jake decoy. Less than 100 yards from the roost, George gets the toms all hot and bothered with his clucking, purring, and yelping. Sitting about 10 yards from him, I get some good audio & video, with the video camera, of him calling and the toms hammering back as dawn breaks.

It's finally light enough and it sounds as if 2 of the 3 birds we can hear have finally flown down and I'm expecting to see them anytime. I zoom in with the camera to where I anticipate them coming into view and then see a bird fly down just to the right of where I'm focused! (I ended up catching some of it on camera though.)

Although I have the camera focused on the general area, I'm watching over the top with my eyes, trying to pick up on movement from the bird. Finally, I catch a glimpse of the tom and he goes into full strut as he approaches the field!

Zooming in, I focus my attention on the LCD screen on the camera instead of on the actual events unfolding in front of me, trying to capture the hunt as best I can.

The gobbler nears the field, a hen slowly following him as they approach the edge. They can clearly see the decoys now and while they excite the tom, causing him to spit and drum while never breaking out of strut, the hen is intimidated and doesn't want to enter the field. Instead, she hangs on the edge, critiquing the situation with a wary eye.

Of course, the gobbler does all of his strutting behind the only clump of saplings that's in my way of getting a clear view of him with the camera. From George's position to my right, there's nothing between him and the birds but 18 yards of open air.

When we decided to film hunts, I told George I wasn't going to let the camera keep either of us from taking a bird. We'd just get whatever footage we could, and that would be good enough for our first season trying this.

After a minute or so of parading back and forth, the gobbler moves back behind the largest sapling in my way, shielding all of him from my view except his fan. Suddenly, he breaks strut and I know the gig is up!

BOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

The camera jumps as the blast still scares me even though I was expecting it and I spin the camera on the tripod to focus on George. He asks if I got it and I tell him "Everything but the actual kill!" Though disappointing, the footage I DID get is pretty good.

George's bird was a solid 2 year old with an 8.5" beard, 3/4" spurs and just over 18 lbs.

2 down, 2 to go!

Kings of Spring

Spring. One of my favorite times of year. The snow melts off, the temperatures rise, the flowers bloom, and the turkeys begin to gobble!

I look forward to hunting spring turkeys as much as I look forward to hunting rutting whitetails. Heck, maybe more! One thing about hunting gobblers is, you can find them in fields quite often, and you can (typically) hear a response to your calls. That's usually not the case with whitetails, at least mature bucks!

The excitement with turkeys starts with the first gobble and continues, increasing, as the bird appears and approachs your set up. Sometimes they come in silently though, you just have to be ready 100% of the time!

This year I started turkey hunting with a relatively new friend of mine, George Kuhns. While I have plenty of friends that would like to shoot a bird, most aren't into it as much as I am. George is.

We made a pact this winter that we'd hunt together as much as possible and try to get a few kills on video if we could too. On top of that, we wanted to try and get his mom her first bird and I wanted to get one with my bow. He and I ALSO sent in for extra tags, allowing us to each take 2 bearded birds.

After seeing turkeys virtually everywhere we looked for them, April 26th FINALLY rolled around and our spring season was underway!

We started off opening morning with Mama Kuhns (George's mom) and him in my ground blind, and me directly behind them filming. We set up in a small field behind her house where she'd been seeing birds nearly every day for weeks. Of course, they avoided us (we never heard a peep or saw them at all) that day (and every other time we tried hunting them for that matter).

About 9 a.m., we decided to wrap it up there and George and I scooted over to another property to "run and gun", before the thunderstorm on the horizon got to us. As it looked like it was going to rain imminently, we left the video camera in the truck.

After covering a solid mile, while calling every 50 yards or so, depending on terrain, and breaking out every trick in the book from aggressive cutting, to soft clucks and purrs, coupled with leaf raking, we were about as frustrated as we could get. We knew this property held birds, fresh sign was everywhere, but we couldn't raise a single gobble!

I'd just told George that this was the first time in 4 years I hadn't had the opportunity to take a longbeard on opening day, when a bird gobbled out ahead of us! We both hit the dirt in the trail as we'd just crested a hill, and it sounded like the bird was in the field ahead of us, which the trail led directly to.

I slide out my aluminum pot and peg call, and cutt at the tom. He IMMEDIATELY answered! George crawls back behind us about 10 yards and sets up a hen decoy in the middle of the trail. We both ease over to a large tree about 10 yards off the trail that will conceal us and sit down.

As we settle in against the tree, I cutt to the gobbler and he again immediately answers and sounds closer. One more time I call and he hammers back. I wait a few seconds and he gobbles again on his own, DEFINITELY closer! He's coming!

After a minute or so, George tells me to call one more time. As soon as I cutt, the tom answers; he's not far out of sight, coming up the trail!

Sitting side by side, with both guns pointed in the direction of the approaching gobbler, George quietly whispers "I see him. He's right behind that blowdown on the trail edge." I pick up on the bird's red head through the brush as he scopes out our decoy.

He's within range but instead of going straight ahead to the "hen", he decides to cut into the hemlock grove we're sitting in, to skirt around us. It's too thick to chance letting him go too far, so I tell George "When he goes behind that big tree, I'm going to move my gun, and when he comes out, I'm going to shoot him." Out of the corner of my eye I see George's left hand slide to the ground.

Slowly stepping along, scrutinizing everything, the tom disappears behind the tree and I make my move. I slide the gun over, bury my cheek on the stock and prepare to shoot. Just as the gobbler steps into a clear shooting lane, George scratches the leaves and the tom stops and stretches his neck and head up to get a better look at where the sound came from. I settle the bead on his neck and press the trigger and the first "King of the Spring" crumples into the leaves!
After the handshakes, we get out the camera and snap some pictures to remember the hunt by. It's getting warm out, and that thunderstorm that was "imminent" never materialized, as the sun came out. It was a long, hot walk but, with a big turkey on my back, it was worth every step!

Sporting a 10.5" beard, 7/8" spurs, and weighing 20 lbs, 3 oz, our first bird had us off to a good start of the spring!