With my Turkey hunt on Tuesday turning into triple Hog hunt , I decided to try the Turkey hunting again Friday morning. Like my post in the Hog/Varmint forum it started out as a Hog hunt again. Bear with me, my post gets back to Turkey on down.

Hunting partner Steve was along. When I arrived at the lease there were hogs in both of our fields. Steve was already at camp and knew hogs where in one field, but he also knew Turkeys were roosted there so did not want to bother them. But the other field did not, so off we went.

Steve, Myself, and my Dog Blaze stalked double time through the woods like a silent pack of Wolves. At the field we called a three count to shoot. I decided to hold back and take one after the first shot. My first shot, well, I had forgot to put a round in the chamber, so "click", no boom. Quickly I racked in a shell and shot a distant running pig before it got to the trees. This day I had a 300 WBY and it made a WUMP sound when it hit. Steve got off three shots and later we found he killed two. So three pigs total.




Ok, I know this was intended to be a Turkey hunt, so back to that. I talked Steve into setting his blind up next to mine, combining decoys, and to take the same one, two, "shoot" approach. We set up the blinds and decoys in the dark so they would be ready in the morning. Really should have put them up before we drank the half bottle of Makers Mark, but we did not, so that was comical. Somehow we actually woke up in the morning.

First light we had a Hen cross the field and pay us no attention. So a little excitement before we realized it was not a Gobbler. Then the calling started. Three young Gobblers ran a 500 yard race to our decoys. I barely had time to get my shotgun out the window. We done good!



BTW, This was Steve's first "Spring" Turkey. At noon he headed home, but I wanted to try for another bird and eradicate another hog or two. No sooner had I climbed into the blind in the late afternoon when two small hogs appeared on a far edge of the field. The wind had laid down. I had a good rest. No hold over with the 300. So not too difficult despite the distance. Yet I was still surprised when one fell.



Giving up on an evening Turkey, and after retrieving the Hog, I decided to walk on towards the small field and take a picture of the 100s of Buzzards that had shown up to munch out on our Hog carcasses. Blaze stayed behind taking a nap in the back seat of the Truck waiting to head home.



The moment I took that picture, I noticed two Turkeys in the field. I did not have camos on anymore, so I backtracked and dropped into a nearby creek that ran next to the field. As I ran it, I spooked dozens of roosted buzzards.

Concerned the retreating Buzzards would have spooked the turkeys I ran to the field to take whatever distant shot I could get instead of a stalk.

As I came to the field edge, A coyote that had been on a hog carcass saw me and high tailed it outta there. I ran to find a rest to shoot the Coyote, but again noticed the Turkeys. And they had not spooked. Buuuut! The Coyote was headed strait for them. The Coyote split them like parting water and kept on going. So down the field edge I ran to get a sight picture on one of the Turkeys. By then I noticed they had good size beards.

I reached a point where I had one small window of opportunity through a hole in the brush. Standing shot, gun rested on arm, me braced on a flimsy sapling. Heart pounding and breathing hard from all the running, moving birds about to leave the field. Hens had joined them and moving about, often in line with the Gobblers. And the 300 WBY meant it had to be a precise neck shot. I gave up, just not enough time and not a solid enough rest for it to happen. I could not even get a steady picture with the camera as the last two birds left the field



Well that's the end of our season. This was the last day for anyone to hunt on our lease in Young County till next season. Hunting now is off limits for us till Sept 1st. Went out with a bang though. We took 7 hogs this week. And our Spring Turkey was not a bust after all with the two Gobblers taken.

Pretty ain't it!



I know these are not Squirrels. Got hot fast so I hit the shade for some fishing. I used that sunfish for cut bait and caught this 25 inch Bowfin.

We hit Gus Engeling WMA and Richland Creek WMA. Caught Bowfin (8 total) at both as well as a variety of other Fish. It was too hot, and too many horse flies, to enjoy the Squirrel hunting, so just did a lot of hit and run fishing and scouting. Horse flies were really wearing Blaze out in the Woods. My bad for oversleeping and not getting out there right at sunrise while it was cool. But it was more fun than mowing the lawn and Blaze enjoyed herself