As usual, a little persistence pays off big. Both my dad and I drew tags for MN’s B season, which stared last Wednesday.
As usual, the turkey’s completely disappeared from my trail cams at my property near Hinckley the week before our season. I wish I knew why or how this happens, but somebody MUST be telling the turkeys that it’s hunting season, because I have plot pictures of turkeys aplenty up until a week ago, and then… gone! I would love to know how or why this happens.
At least the weather would finally be on our side. I could hunt Thursday through Saturday and finally after suffering through disastrous weather for the past 2 early that I drew tags for (seasons 1 and 2) including deep snow and torrential rain, we had about as fine a weather forecast as you can expect for Minnesota in April. Only moderate chances of rain and mainly sunny. Everything seemed to be headed in the right direction.
I couldn’t hunt on the opening day, but dad sat in the ground blinds all day on Wednesday and saw absolutely nothing. The turkeys that had been using those food plots with religious devotion had truly vanished. It was clearly going to be time to change the game plan before I even actually got in the game. The ground blind game was clearly the wrong plan.
Thursday was the first day I could hunt and we started with a new Run & Gun game plan. Which turned out to be a lot of running, a lot of listening, and absolutely no gunning. Despite sprinkles of rain, the gobblers were showing some signs of life at dawn, but nothing even close to nearby. Dad headed to the ground blind after sunrise to see if the turkeys would go back on the feed, I went on a 3 mile hike to see if the ground game could produce. Neither of us had any luck except that dad had 10 deer move in almost on top of his ground blind and could not move for over an hour. Nice to see the deer numbers recovering nicely.
Friday, the morning weather was better, but the turkey hunting actually got worse. Daybreak was absolutely silent. Not a single gobble was heard from total darkness to full light. I did a 4 mile walk of overlooks in fields and pastures to see if the turkeys had gone out into the fields, but there was not a turkey to be seen. Where did they go?
This was disappointing because I expected with the fine weather on Friday, that the birds would be out in force. The evening produced the same, we checked the usual roosts in multiple places and not a sign.
It was a little hard to get motivated for another 4:00 AM start on Saturday, but start we did. The weather was clear, the temp was 29. I was determined to stick with the run and gun game plan to try to respond to wherever it was that the turkeys had holed up. As it turned out, the birds slept in and dawn was silent. We made a stand near a pine plantation that is always a root, but not a peep. We pulled back to the truck and had a cup of coffee while listening and hoping a gobble would give us some direction.
My second coffee refill was cut short. Goooobbbbbbbble! Game on to the south, but it sounded like a long, long ways away. At least a quarter mile beyond our south line. But we went for it anyway. Down to the south line we went, where there is a large stand of fine oak trees.
We set up against oak trees on top of an idyllic rise in the ground giving fine views 180 degrees. We took up spots in the shade facing the the fence. The property on the opposite side of the line has been logged, so it is thick popple about 4 inches in diameter, so visibility on the turkey’s side of the line was very limited. We would have to get them all the way across the line and into the clear.
I quickly staked out two decoys, a Flextone Funky Chicken jake decoy, and a Hottie Hen. With the lack of cover in the oak trees on our side, I figured we would benefit from giving any comers something to look at instead of us. We took our seats and I started calling.
I called and there was an immediate gobble response. The problem was it still sounded very far away and I wasn’t even sure it really was a response to me. I yelped back and then purred. Gobble! Another immediate response. OK, time to play coy and see if the silence would tease him into action. At this point I still wasn’t sure there was any chance that Mr. Gobbler would want to take such a long walk.
The minutes dragged on and finally I couldn’t stand it. Another series of yelps and putts was rudely interrupted by a huge gobble–less than 100 yards away! “Game on! I whispered to dad. Set!” Dad shifted and raised his shotgun and I propped mine up higher. I delivered another set of soft yelps.
Gobble! Gobble, gobble! Mr. Frisky cut loose from 20 yards away, still totally concealed in the thick popple. I gave him 2 more yelps and was about to yelp again when I spotted them. 30 yards to my left there were 2 turkeys in a line. The rearmost bird paused and strutted briefly while looking around, then he ran past the other bird and onto the line. The second bird popped onto the fenceline as well and they spotted the decoys and both opened up into struts. Dueling toms! I could not believe our luck, but now the key was could we pull off the double? Or even the single.
Immediately, I saw a problem. The toms were fast approaching our decoys, but in a direction that placed a big oak tree directly between dad and the turkeys. I wasn’t even sure he had seen them at all, but I couldn’t even whisper anything because I was in full, wide open view. The turkeys strutted and then closed down and closed the distance, ready to show The Funky Chicken who the bosses were around here.
I managed to get the call out of my hand and everything went into slow motion. I brought up the shotgun hoping that when the lead tom cleared the tree on dad’s side, the trailing tom would still be visible to me on the opposite side of the big oak. I took a bead on the trailing tom as the leader slipped behind the oak. Wait. Wait. Wait.
Booooooooom! Dad’s Benelli (generously lent to him by forum member Tegg, as dad had never in his 75 years of hunting actually owned a 12 gauge) roared at the lead tom that I now could not see. But what I DID see was a cloud of dirt fly. I had a full half second to think, “He missed!” and then I touched off my shot at the second tom, who was frozen to the spot.
Boooooooom! The tom was bowled over by the cloud of copper plated shot from a Federal Premium 3 inch. Then he popped up like target in a shooting gallery and he was off again! Booom, booooom! There was no time to think, only time to rap off 2 more shots at the fleeing turkey, but what I was thinking was, “Why didn’t dad shoot again?”
Quite returned to the oaks and the picture became clear as we approached the fencline. Dad, in his typical deadeye style, had absolutely stoned the lead tom. It didn’t even twitch.
But my turkey was nowhere to be seen. Had I really done managed to mess up this golden chance by missing? A quick search of the underbrush revealed my tom had run out of gas only 20 yards further. We had done it! A perfect Minnesota double on a perfect day.
Photos: Dad and I, in the oak grove with the birds. Dad’s turkey is the slightly larger one on the right of the picture. The Funky Chicken and I share a bro-ment. The Chicken is gamer, is willingness to take a beating for the team is always appreciated.
Grouse
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