Well I did it…my first turkey with a bow…and it didn’t take long at all! After months of preperation and practicing with the bow, it all came down to a half an hour hunt. It’s Tuesday night and my son and I are heading down to our hunting spot to set up the blind…it’s about 6:00 and there are no birds in the field…PERFECT! 
We sneak out as best we can (it’s about 300 yards off the main road) and set up the blind in the perfect spot…a finger of woods that jets out of the main woods and runs about 100 yards long and only about 50 yards wide in the biggest section. Towards the end of the finger there is a spot that you can drive a vehicle through….so we set the blind in there because on Sunday I noticed two toms use that area to get from field to field. We are in and out with no problems!
So after a long night of anticipation, we get up at 4:00 a.m. to get breakfast in us and head out to the blind. My son is 9 years old and loves this turkey hunting thing, but when it comes to long sits in the woods….well you know…he 9! That’s why I bought this blind…so he could do a little moving around and not get too bored! So we packed for a long day in the blind…snacks, drinks and of course the most important thing…the Gameboy! Anyway, we get to the blind and I start to set out the decoys when I hear two hens starting to get fired up….we are only 100 yards from where they are roosted and they are getting loud!
We get set up and the timing couldn’t have been better! I don’t think I was in the blind for about 5 minutes when I hear the WHOOSH as the birds begin to land in the field…75 yards from the blind. I watch as a dozen or so birds come flying in one or two at a time….AWESOME! So as we sit and watch for about 5 minutes, I realize I don’t have the video camera set up. So I get that fired up and ready to go…the hens are really fired up now and the Tom’s are going crazy…but I don’t see any of the long beards! So I naswer the hens with some calls of my own! They don’t like this and proceed to get louder…and so do I! You want to upset a hen, cut her off when she is doing her thing by being louder and more aggressive than she is! We had a good time playing with them for a bit…but they never came down to us. After about 10 minutes of that I notice movement to our left…coming over a little rise in the field were two hens and a tom….about 75 yards away and closing. That’s when I realized I hadn’t put my release on yet! 
Panic set in as I couldn’t find it yet (thank god for the blind…I was throwing stuff around trying to find it). Ok…now we’re set…got the camera rolling and the release on…things are going good…..couldn’t get anymore exciting than that…so I look over at my hunting buddy…and he is fast asleep right next to me! 
I get him up just in time for the tom to come spitting and drumming into our set up…right to the jake decoy he goes! I get to full draw as he is coming in on a full strut! He walks past the decoy….stops….turns and gives me the shot….8 YARDS AWAY! 
Game over…he goes maybe 5 yards and drops! 
I look at my watch…it’s 6:07! Thatis the quickest hunt I’ve ever had! Here are the pictures….I’m hoping I can post the video on here as well soon! He weighed in at 23#. 9 3/4″ beard with about an inch spurs! Not the biggest beard but it was pretty! The only problem was we never got to enjoy our snacks…and the fact that the hunt was over within a half an hour into the season! 
But he didn’t care…he got to see something better than that!
