Adventures Outdoors'
IN WISCONSIN
I just returned from my 2006 turkey hunt in which I hunted zone 37 (Dunn Co.) the first period. I was excited to be lucky enough to draw the first week and was confident I would be successful. Maybe to confident. I made a mistake that I learned long ago not to do. I moved to quicly on a hung up tom and spooked him out of the county. I thought about the times I’ve goofed up and although I have harvested a lot of toms in Wisconsin I have lost many by making mistakes. Since I started hunting turkeys there has been only one year that I couldn’t have killed a turkey.
My Dad and I attended our first turkey hunting seminar and were anxious to draw a Wisconsin turkey hunting permit. The year was 1988. Few permits were given out and only about five hundred birds were harvested in the state that year. I read everything I could get my hands on to learn the turkeys habits. We finally received our permits to hunt the 1989 season.
We arrived in the southwestern part of the state a couple weeks early to scout the area and ask permission to hunt. To our delight we found lots of birds and nearly every farmer we asked was more than happy to let us whack some turkeys.
We had everything going for us. Well, almost everything. We had our permits, the time off work, our family’s blessings, a place to hunt that held turkeys and the knowledge of the bird itself through numerous books and magazine articles. We had the calling down and a couple decoys, even the proper camo. Everything to kill a turkey right? Wrong. What we didn’t have was turkey hunting experience. Here are a few of my blunders for you to learn from. I always tell my kids that it’s easier to learn from someone else’s mistakes than to learn the hard way. Sometimes they listen and sometimes they don’t. Opportunities happen quickly and to be successful you have to make the right decision in a hurry.
Hunt #1 – Crawford Co. Wisconsin. We roosted a couple tom’s the night before our first turkey hunt and were now walking toward our quarry’s tree in the early morning before dark. A tom let out a gobble. We stopped and listened. He gobbled again. “Good luck, I’ll see you later” I told my Dad as I started running toward the gobbler.
As the bird continued gobbling I got within about fifty yards and stopped at a fence between the tom and I. The tom was in the woods and I was in the field. I sat along the fence and took out my diaphragm call and started yelping and clucking. Every time I sounded off he gobbled. I heard him fly down and hit the ground with a thump. I kept right on yelping and clucking. The gobbling stopped; I thought the bird had left. I kept right on clucking and yelping away now frustrated that the bird had left. Than I saw it. It was the first wild turkey I had seen while hunting. It was an awesome sight. Big and black with a bright red, white and blue head. The only problem was that he saw me too. With all the calling, he had located my exact spot and had snuck up to a mere ten feet from me. He was on the other side of the fence behind some small brush and moving his head from side to side trying to get a better look at me through the twigs. If I move he will surely bolt.
He turned away and walked down the fence line watching me closely. When he got out of range I began calling more. The tom ignored me. Just then I heard a couple clucks up the hill. The bird found a hole in the fence some hundred yards or so from me and came into the field. It booked across the field up into the woods across from me and “BANG”. All the while I never stopped calling. The other hunter up the hill simply made a couple clucks and sent the tom in search of the new hen. Instead the turkey found a load of lead.
Obviously I called way too much, but there are other mistakes I made. First and foremost I should have positioned myself on the other side of the fence so as to be on the same side as the turkey. Turkeys don’t like to cross obstacles, especially fences. The best spot would have been at the opening in the fence that he originally went through. I also might have gotten a little to close to the lonely tom. Usually a tom sounding off in the dark has either been shock gobbled (gobbling to a sudden sound like that of an owl call or car door slamming) or is roosted alone. This turkey was by himself and would have made the extra fifty yard walk.
When I did happen to see the turkey so close to me, I didn’t want to move and spook him. A quick shouldering of the gun and the turkey wouldn’t have had time to get out of range. I heard so much about shooting him at the head that I never considered shooting because his head was moving so much. I could have easily killed him at that range even if he was moving. I also didn’t want to shoot through the brush but a few small twigs aren’t going to stop a load of three inch number four Remington nitro mags. One last detail that could have made that hunt a success was to put out the decoy I had with me. I didn’t put it out because I had got so close to him I didn’t think I needed it. The tom may have focused on the decoy giving me time to move my gun up to shoot. Lessons learned include call only enough that the tom has to search me out. If the turkey is within twenty yards shoot. Don’t worry about a small amount of brush, most of the shot will make it through, if you have time to put the decoy out, use it, And take the time to position yourself properly for the shot.
Hunt #3 – Crawford Co. Wisconsin. While walking out to the strutting field I had found on an earlier scouting trip I stopped about three hundred yards away and peeked over the hill. I saw three toms trying to impress themselves. All were in full strut without a hen in sight. I tried a couple yelps and nothing. All these toms cared about was themselves. I got a little closer and after a couple more attempts at two hundred yards the toms started moving away from me, clearly not interested in the hen call. After examining the landscape I thought I might be able to sneak up close to them for either a shot or a real close calling situation.
I ran down the hill and across a field that bordered a woods that bordered the field they were in. There was no way they could see me. I slowly started up the steep southwestern Wisconsin hill that would bring me to the edge of the field where I last saw the birds. It should put me twenty to fifty yards from them depending on how far they strutted in the last five minutes or so. As I approached the field I got on my hands and knees, then only yards from the field I belly crawled. When I reached the field I slowly rose onto my butt. I couldn’t see them but knew they had to be close. I let out a series of yelps and clucks. Nothing answered my call. The grass in the field was about knee high and I couldn’t see past ten yards. It was driving me nuts. I had to see where those birds were. I stood up and didn’t see anything. I slowly walked into the field and there they were, running away from me at ten yards in that goofy side to side run they have. First I put the bead on one of them then the other and because of the tall grass I could never get a good shot. Lesson learned, never try to sneak closer than a hundred yards to a turkey. Although this terrain allowed a very close sneak I shouldn’t have got up and walked into the field. Always stay in the cover. If I would have waited the twenty minutes I mentioned earlier I would have probably killed one of these birds.
Hunt # 4 – I was with my son Sean on his first turkey hunt and really wanted him to score on a nice tom. It was the fifth time period in zone 37 (Dunn Co. Wisconsin) in 2004. After working several toms in the morning that ended up leaving us for live hens we pretty much knew they’d be back after the hens left to nest. We left for camp about nine o’clock and after breakfast headed back out to hunt.
It was about eleven o’clock when we returned. As we crested the small hill that led to our previous morning spot I whispered to Sean “get down”. We jumped on the ground out of sight of the big tom. “There is a Tom “doing it” with a hen right in our spot” I told him. Than I looked again and it seemed the gobbler was trying to mate with one of my decoys I had accidentally left out. “I left my decoys out” I informed Sean. We were a good fifty yards away and needed to get closer for a shot. We belly crawled as close as we could staying behind the top of the hill when I told Sean we couldn’t go any further. “Stand up real slow and get the bead on his head”, I told him. After he stood up I said “shoot”. Then I said “wait”, as the bird turned showing its vent. “Wait until he turns around” I told Sean. The tom turned, “Bang, Bang,,,,,,,,Bang”. The bird took to the air while still in full strut, than slowly came out while flying. Quite a sight. After a long search for any sign of a wounded bird we decided he’d missed. The decoys were trashed. The turkey had bent or broken all the stakes and he had his way with all three decoys as they were completely flattened. Lessons learned – Knowing these birds would probably be alone soon; we should have stayed and waited for them to return. I should have picked the decoys up. And instead of sneaking up to the tom and having a twelve year old shoot free handed at a gobbler in full strut forty yards away I should have found the nearest tree and made a couple calls. Chances are, that tom would have walked right over and Sean would have had a close shot with a steady gun.
Hunt #5 - I did happen to screw Sean up one more time on a turkey hunt a couple years later. It was getting late in the morning when a gobbler answered my call. After I was sure he was answering me I called Sean on the radio who was hunting about a hundred yards away from me but closer to the turkey than I was. After several attempts he finally answered me. “Were you sleeping?” I asked. “Ya” Sean replied. “Well stay awake, there’s a tom gobbling about a hundred yards from you”. “Ok” Sean replied. After a couple more series of calls the tom stopped gobbling. I waited about ten minutes and called Sean again on the radio. I called and called him but no answer. “Sean are you sleeping again?” “Bang, Bang,,,,Bang”. I looked out my blind and saw a jake sprinting for the hills. Sean called me on the radio and said that two toms and a jake came up to him a little to his right. He was waiting for them to get to the decoys when the turkeys heard me talking on the radio. They took off running and Sean shot at one of them missing. Lesson learned – Keep the radio in the truck or turn it off when you see a tom.