With the opening of turkey season finding me with no permit for my favorite haunts, I decided to go back to the area that was so good to me last year. It's a WMA that is about 45 minutes from my house to parking the truck. I certainly can't complain much about that. Only a few deer decided to try to commit suicide. Saturday I was disappointed to find that there were three trucks on MY road! THREE!!!!! So, I parked further down the road than normal figuring what the heck. There are turkeys in here somewhere.
I hadn't scouted the area. I was going on the premise of: where there are hens, there are gobblers. I had certainly seen hens in that area many multiple times last year and the water levels weren't so high that they would have moved on to somewhere else. So, somewhere in there, there were gobblers. I sat in my truck until it was time to get loaded up. I was dismayed when I got out of the truck and heard how much wind was blowing through the trees. I knew I would have to be REALLY lucky to hear a gobbler. Ah well. I was there and I was going to give it a try.
I could see down the road far enough that I saw the tail lights of one truck. It was weird. There were constant red lights and white lights, like someone backing up, turning around, backing up, turning around. Daylight continued ever onward and I heard nothing so I slowly began walking down the road. I thought I could always turn up the cross road and explore that direction instead of heading towards the other guys. They must have been just doing the wait-and-hear-a-turkey-and-chase-it thing because after about 20 minutes, they got in the truck and drove back my direction and up the cross road. The other truck continued on down the road away from me. They weren't hearing anything apparently.
Eventually I decided that I may as well hop into the woods and go see just how wet it was back there where I had enticed turkeys before. I forgot that the ditch is full of pot holes because I ended up with one boot full of water. That brought multiple rounds of muttering and cursing. I DETEST wet feet. After stopping on a log to wring out my sock and pour out my boot, I walked slowly through the woods, called, listened, walked some more, called some more and listened some more. I couldn't hear much over the wind. Even the woodpeckers above my head sounded far away. It was wet back there, but I've hunted other swamp turkeys in wetter conditions and there is enough high ground that there are plenty of places for hens to nest still. Thinking about where I saw turkeys last year, I headed in that direction to explore a little more of the higher ground that they creeped in on me from.
I made a blind and sat there for a few hours. Calling. Listening. Hearing nothing but wind. At least it was a pretty place to sit.
Around lunch time or so, I had been sitting for a few hours with the water not totally gone from my boot having crept up my leg, soaking into my long johns. With the wind I was hearing nothing but the trees and I was getting cold. It was time to leave. I had a nice blind that was as good a place as any to start for the next day.
I have seen some odd things in the woods, but this is a new one for me.
One of my favorite things about spring gobbler season is the plethora of flowers that pop up and really make the roadsides gorgeous. The earliest to pop up are the rain lilies. I keep trying to get them to grow in my yard, but for the most part I have been unsuccessful. I'd love for my yard to be blanketed like this roadside. It would only last a couple of weeks at the most but it would be gorgeous.
Looking at the weather for the next day I was a little dismayed to see that they were calling for rain. Luckily they couldn't seem to make up their mind on how much rain or the percentage or when, so I figured the chances were slim for the kind of soaking rain that makes turkey hunting miserable. When I was loading up the truck Sunday morning, I began cursing fiercely. The wind was worse than it was the day before. Now my chances were even worse.
Ah well. You can't kill em if you don't go so I told Belle I had to go to work, be a good girl and I would be home later.
I got out to the woods to happily find that MY road was completely MINE. No interlopers trying to horn in on MY swamp turkeys. I drove down much closer to where I would need to cross the ditch, where I had found the place to cross is actually only about ankle deep instead of knee deep. Whoever invented the PEET boot dryer is my hero or shero. In no particular hurry to get into the woods and have the boogey man chase me, I sat in the truck again until it was time to get out and load up my pack and listen.
I stepped out of the truck and was shocked. The entire woods had gone still. You probably could have heard a mosquito fart it was so still. It was blowing like stink not an hour and a half before. I wasn't complaining though. I enjoyed listening to the woods come alive with the cardinals and owls and hawks and wrens all singing. The occasional chuck-wills-widow calling. Deer crossing the road not far from me, trying to decide what I am. And not a single turkey call. There was a noise far off into my swamp that could have been a turkey but I only heard it once. It was so far off it could have easily been a pileated woodpecker pecking away.
So, I crossed the ditch and headed to my blind as quietly as possible. Which wasn't that quiet at all. I swear all the animals in the forest could hear me from miles away. I just told myself that I sound like a really big turkey. I got to my blind and set out my decoys and then sat and listened. Still no turkey noises. I called from time to time. I heard something in the water behind me peeing so I had to turn around and find out what that was. Turns out some deer were sneaking up behind me. I'd heard rustling but it wasn't much or even constant enough for me to want to turn and check it out.
If you look close you can see two deer, though there were three back there.
They moved off into the palmettos but hung around for a good while, feeding and rustling through the woods. One of them got close enough behind me that I could have sworn I could feel her whiskers on the back of my neck before she snorted and ran off.
While the deer were feeding behind me, no turkeys were talking but some squirrels nearby were chasing each other. One fell out of a tree with such an audible thump into the mud that even my ribs hurt. He just got right up and ran right back up that tree to exact his revenge though. Not sure which one won the battle but they decided to stay in separate trees for the rest of the time I sat there.
About 9:30 or so it started doing the misty drizzle stuff. Enough to make everything damp but not really enough to make anything wet. The wind was picking back up a little bit, though not with the ferocity of the day before. At that point, it was time for me to get up and go for a walk. If I was going to be wet, I was going to be warm and wet. Plus maybe I could find an area with a little more canopy for me to sit under. The rain wasn't so hard I'd get wet if I had a nice umbrella.
I headed on through the woods and came to an old road that is no longer useable but is certainly walkable. I found it last season on the last day of the season. It was pretty back up in there and a little higher elevation than where I had been sitting so I figured maybe drier. There were certainly turkeys back in there last year. I headed off down the road, calling sporadically when there was a break in the breeze until I came to a place that had a great palm tree for me to sit up against to protect me from the rain. And it was just so pretty, I was convinced there just had to be a turkey in there. It was open, near high ground and there just HAD to be turkeys in there....somewhere....
While I was collecting my blind material and setting out my decoys, I came across this lovely. It's a really nice shed for a FL deer.
I'm not quiet in the woods. I'm not sure I could ever be. So when I sat down in my blind and got all situated, I let the woods calm down for about 10 minutes before I yelped a few times. I was just letting the gobblers know that I was out there and looking for love. I didn't get any response. I didn't expect to. I just watched my woods, listened to the birds, stayed mostly dry, admired my pretty antler, contemplated where I should look for the matching side, and watched my woods some more. After sitting for about 20 minutes or so, off to my right I heard what sounded like a garbled gobble. I thought a gobbler, but maybe jake. I didn't care though. It was my first turkey peep of the season!
It's amazing how fast you can go from silently and contentedly sitting in your little hidey hole to vibrating and your heart racing. In less than a millisecond I went from chill to wired and shaky and excited. Turkey fever struck me so hard that even when I yelped at him a few times, my yelping sounded scratchy and shaky. He didn't respond to me but I didn't really expect him to. He had gobbled at a hawk that was screaming. I got turned in his direction, hoping that he would gobble again so I would know if he was really gonna come in from that direction or if he was going to circle around to more in front of me. My breathing was so ragged as I watched my woods. My gun barrel was shaking. I knew I had to get myself under control. The hawk screamed again and he gobbled at it. This time a full bodied gobble. But he didn't sound any closer really. I yelped at him a couple more times, him never responding to me. I put the call down, picked my gun up and watched the woods some more.
I have learned to watch for movement that seems "off". When there is a breeze, plants blow in a certain way. They flash in the light in a certain way. Animals moving through the woods move differently. Sometimes in a jerky way if they are pecking their way through the woods. And gobblers with their heads so white or red and bodies so black....well the colors can really stand out, even when you only have a little bit of space to look through. I was watching in the direction that he had gobbled from and all of a sudden I saw that head jerking back and forth. I think that my heart sped up even more. He was just on the edge of my right side shooting lane. I hadn't turned my body as far as I ought to have. But he was still certainly doable. He gobbled a couple times while he strutted in. He was moving fast and pretty quiet. Even when I could see him at 50 yards his gobbling sounded really quiet, though I could feel him gobble in my chest. I had a little moment of fear because I lost him behind a large clump of palmettos. I knew it was a blind spot but I figured that could work in my favor as well. I didn't move though because I couldn't hear which direction he was going. My heart was pounding louder than the breeze through the trees.
Where was he?!?!?!!??!?
He only tortured me for a few seconds, but it felt like hours. He had continued on into the right side of my shooting lane. Following the edge of the palmetto clump. He was gorgeous all strutted out and his big white and blue head glowing in the dappled light. I still didn't have a good shot when I had seen him again but he continued ever onward towards me. Until he came to a gap in the palmettos and he saw my decoys. Luckily it was also a gap in the palmettos for me too. I had a great shot. I thought maybe he would move in over more to my left, more into the open but I believe that he saw my jake and hen decoy and got upset. He slicked down real fast and started putting, walking back and forth a little. Like he was upset but maybe wanted to kick butt but couldn't decide how badass he really was. When he turned his back as if he were going to run off, I took my shot.
I am always surprised how badly turkey fever takes over me but I can usually calm myself down for the few seconds needed to get the bead steady on my turkey and take my shot. But then it comes back with a vengeance right after. My turkey never moved. I stumbled out of my blind grinning like a fool. He put on a great show for me, though it was short and I would have loved to have watched him come on in from much further out. But I wasn't complaining!!! I GOT ME A TURKEY!!!!!
I always feel a bit sad (more so than with other animals that I hunt) that I have taken a turkey. They usually put on quite a show and they show off how gorgeous they can be. I often sit for a while, replaying the scene in my mind and admiring the beauty laying by my side. Still grinning like a fool but there is so much to admire about a turkey and be sad about in taking his life. I couldn't help but wonder if this was one of the jakes that I saw multiple times last year because this was definitely a two year old.
Older, wiser birds are great trophies. I have spent entire seasons chasing one bird. Some years I am successful, other years they further cement my love hate relationship with turkeys. Two year old birds are great trophies but they are also quite fun. They are uninhibited, horny birds that typically put on a great show in their quest to slake their lust. How can you not love that?
Dani
I hadn't scouted the area. I was going on the premise of: where there are hens, there are gobblers. I had certainly seen hens in that area many multiple times last year and the water levels weren't so high that they would have moved on to somewhere else. So, somewhere in there, there were gobblers. I sat in my truck until it was time to get loaded up. I was dismayed when I got out of the truck and heard how much wind was blowing through the trees. I knew I would have to be REALLY lucky to hear a gobbler. Ah well. I was there and I was going to give it a try.
I could see down the road far enough that I saw the tail lights of one truck. It was weird. There were constant red lights and white lights, like someone backing up, turning around, backing up, turning around. Daylight continued ever onward and I heard nothing so I slowly began walking down the road. I thought I could always turn up the cross road and explore that direction instead of heading towards the other guys. They must have been just doing the wait-and-hear-a-turkey-and-chase-it thing because after about 20 minutes, they got in the truck and drove back my direction and up the cross road. The other truck continued on down the road away from me. They weren't hearing anything apparently.
Eventually I decided that I may as well hop into the woods and go see just how wet it was back there where I had enticed turkeys before. I forgot that the ditch is full of pot holes because I ended up with one boot full of water. That brought multiple rounds of muttering and cursing. I DETEST wet feet. After stopping on a log to wring out my sock and pour out my boot, I walked slowly through the woods, called, listened, walked some more, called some more and listened some more. I couldn't hear much over the wind. Even the woodpeckers above my head sounded far away. It was wet back there, but I've hunted other swamp turkeys in wetter conditions and there is enough high ground that there are plenty of places for hens to nest still. Thinking about where I saw turkeys last year, I headed in that direction to explore a little more of the higher ground that they creeped in on me from.
I made a blind and sat there for a few hours. Calling. Listening. Hearing nothing but wind. At least it was a pretty place to sit.
Around lunch time or so, I had been sitting for a few hours with the water not totally gone from my boot having crept up my leg, soaking into my long johns. With the wind I was hearing nothing but the trees and I was getting cold. It was time to leave. I had a nice blind that was as good a place as any to start for the next day.
I have seen some odd things in the woods, but this is a new one for me.
One of my favorite things about spring gobbler season is the plethora of flowers that pop up and really make the roadsides gorgeous. The earliest to pop up are the rain lilies. I keep trying to get them to grow in my yard, but for the most part I have been unsuccessful. I'd love for my yard to be blanketed like this roadside. It would only last a couple of weeks at the most but it would be gorgeous.
Looking at the weather for the next day I was a little dismayed to see that they were calling for rain. Luckily they couldn't seem to make up their mind on how much rain or the percentage or when, so I figured the chances were slim for the kind of soaking rain that makes turkey hunting miserable. When I was loading up the truck Sunday morning, I began cursing fiercely. The wind was worse than it was the day before. Now my chances were even worse.
Ah well. You can't kill em if you don't go so I told Belle I had to go to work, be a good girl and I would be home later.
I got out to the woods to happily find that MY road was completely MINE. No interlopers trying to horn in on MY swamp turkeys. I drove down much closer to where I would need to cross the ditch, where I had found the place to cross is actually only about ankle deep instead of knee deep. Whoever invented the PEET boot dryer is my hero or shero. In no particular hurry to get into the woods and have the boogey man chase me, I sat in the truck again until it was time to get out and load up my pack and listen.
I stepped out of the truck and was shocked. The entire woods had gone still. You probably could have heard a mosquito fart it was so still. It was blowing like stink not an hour and a half before. I wasn't complaining though. I enjoyed listening to the woods come alive with the cardinals and owls and hawks and wrens all singing. The occasional chuck-wills-widow calling. Deer crossing the road not far from me, trying to decide what I am. And not a single turkey call. There was a noise far off into my swamp that could have been a turkey but I only heard it once. It was so far off it could have easily been a pileated woodpecker pecking away.
So, I crossed the ditch and headed to my blind as quietly as possible. Which wasn't that quiet at all. I swear all the animals in the forest could hear me from miles away. I just told myself that I sound like a really big turkey. I got to my blind and set out my decoys and then sat and listened. Still no turkey noises. I called from time to time. I heard something in the water behind me peeing so I had to turn around and find out what that was. Turns out some deer were sneaking up behind me. I'd heard rustling but it wasn't much or even constant enough for me to want to turn and check it out.
If you look close you can see two deer, though there were three back there.
They moved off into the palmettos but hung around for a good while, feeding and rustling through the woods. One of them got close enough behind me that I could have sworn I could feel her whiskers on the back of my neck before she snorted and ran off.
While the deer were feeding behind me, no turkeys were talking but some squirrels nearby were chasing each other. One fell out of a tree with such an audible thump into the mud that even my ribs hurt. He just got right up and ran right back up that tree to exact his revenge though. Not sure which one won the battle but they decided to stay in separate trees for the rest of the time I sat there.
About 9:30 or so it started doing the misty drizzle stuff. Enough to make everything damp but not really enough to make anything wet. The wind was picking back up a little bit, though not with the ferocity of the day before. At that point, it was time for me to get up and go for a walk. If I was going to be wet, I was going to be warm and wet. Plus maybe I could find an area with a little more canopy for me to sit under. The rain wasn't so hard I'd get wet if I had a nice umbrella.
I headed on through the woods and came to an old road that is no longer useable but is certainly walkable. I found it last season on the last day of the season. It was pretty back up in there and a little higher elevation than where I had been sitting so I figured maybe drier. There were certainly turkeys back in there last year. I headed off down the road, calling sporadically when there was a break in the breeze until I came to a place that had a great palm tree for me to sit up against to protect me from the rain. And it was just so pretty, I was convinced there just had to be a turkey in there. It was open, near high ground and there just HAD to be turkeys in there....somewhere....
While I was collecting my blind material and setting out my decoys, I came across this lovely. It's a really nice shed for a FL deer.
I'm not quiet in the woods. I'm not sure I could ever be. So when I sat down in my blind and got all situated, I let the woods calm down for about 10 minutes before I yelped a few times. I was just letting the gobblers know that I was out there and looking for love. I didn't get any response. I didn't expect to. I just watched my woods, listened to the birds, stayed mostly dry, admired my pretty antler, contemplated where I should look for the matching side, and watched my woods some more. After sitting for about 20 minutes or so, off to my right I heard what sounded like a garbled gobble. I thought a gobbler, but maybe jake. I didn't care though. It was my first turkey peep of the season!
It's amazing how fast you can go from silently and contentedly sitting in your little hidey hole to vibrating and your heart racing. In less than a millisecond I went from chill to wired and shaky and excited. Turkey fever struck me so hard that even when I yelped at him a few times, my yelping sounded scratchy and shaky. He didn't respond to me but I didn't really expect him to. He had gobbled at a hawk that was screaming. I got turned in his direction, hoping that he would gobble again so I would know if he was really gonna come in from that direction or if he was going to circle around to more in front of me. My breathing was so ragged as I watched my woods. My gun barrel was shaking. I knew I had to get myself under control. The hawk screamed again and he gobbled at it. This time a full bodied gobble. But he didn't sound any closer really. I yelped at him a couple more times, him never responding to me. I put the call down, picked my gun up and watched the woods some more.
I have learned to watch for movement that seems "off". When there is a breeze, plants blow in a certain way. They flash in the light in a certain way. Animals moving through the woods move differently. Sometimes in a jerky way if they are pecking their way through the woods. And gobblers with their heads so white or red and bodies so black....well the colors can really stand out, even when you only have a little bit of space to look through. I was watching in the direction that he had gobbled from and all of a sudden I saw that head jerking back and forth. I think that my heart sped up even more. He was just on the edge of my right side shooting lane. I hadn't turned my body as far as I ought to have. But he was still certainly doable. He gobbled a couple times while he strutted in. He was moving fast and pretty quiet. Even when I could see him at 50 yards his gobbling sounded really quiet, though I could feel him gobble in my chest. I had a little moment of fear because I lost him behind a large clump of palmettos. I knew it was a blind spot but I figured that could work in my favor as well. I didn't move though because I couldn't hear which direction he was going. My heart was pounding louder than the breeze through the trees.
Where was he?!?!?!!??!?
He only tortured me for a few seconds, but it felt like hours. He had continued on into the right side of my shooting lane. Following the edge of the palmetto clump. He was gorgeous all strutted out and his big white and blue head glowing in the dappled light. I still didn't have a good shot when I had seen him again but he continued ever onward towards me. Until he came to a gap in the palmettos and he saw my decoys. Luckily it was also a gap in the palmettos for me too. I had a great shot. I thought maybe he would move in over more to my left, more into the open but I believe that he saw my jake and hen decoy and got upset. He slicked down real fast and started putting, walking back and forth a little. Like he was upset but maybe wanted to kick butt but couldn't decide how badass he really was. When he turned his back as if he were going to run off, I took my shot.
I am always surprised how badly turkey fever takes over me but I can usually calm myself down for the few seconds needed to get the bead steady on my turkey and take my shot. But then it comes back with a vengeance right after. My turkey never moved. I stumbled out of my blind grinning like a fool. He put on a great show for me, though it was short and I would have loved to have watched him come on in from much further out. But I wasn't complaining!!! I GOT ME A TURKEY!!!!!
I always feel a bit sad (more so than with other animals that I hunt) that I have taken a turkey. They usually put on quite a show and they show off how gorgeous they can be. I often sit for a while, replaying the scene in my mind and admiring the beauty laying by my side. Still grinning like a fool but there is so much to admire about a turkey and be sad about in taking his life. I couldn't help but wonder if this was one of the jakes that I saw multiple times last year because this was definitely a two year old.
Older, wiser birds are great trophies. I have spent entire seasons chasing one bird. Some years I am successful, other years they further cement my love hate relationship with turkeys. Two year old birds are great trophies but they are also quite fun. They are uninhibited, horny birds that typically put on a great show in their quest to slake their lust. How can you not love that?
Dani
