WI 5th Season Turkey Report

Hunting mature toms in the later seasons presents many challenges. Odds are many of the toms that are still alive have already witnessed a decoy set up and heard an array of putts and yelps. They become call shy and just don’t come running in. This is when I like to throw something new at them. Do something different so to speak.

Tina and I drew tags for the 5th season in WI. We were going to be hunting 2 farms where a couple of other hunters already tried to fill their tags (unsuccessfully). One farm holds a lot of turkeys but they are somewhat unpredictable in determining where they roost at night and where they enter and exit the big field in the morning.

There was no doubt in my mind that we were going to see a tom, but where? On one side of the big field was a long ridge and this is normally where the turkeys roost. The other side was a large woodlot that had a winding river flowing through it. I’ve hunted this property before and knew the turkeys sometimes roost here as well. If the toms were not gobbling in the morning, where would we set up?

Based on my own experience, hunting open field toms is very tough. Once these toms have a harem of hens around them in the middle of the field, odds are they are not going to come into your set up no matter how good you sound on that call. This year I decided to do something different. As many of you who know me, I’m not a big fan of using decoys in the later seasons because I’ve had too many “hang up” encounters once the tom sees my decoy(s). Nothing is more frustrating then to see a tom strut and spin just out of range. I’ve tried a variety of decoy set ups including a lone hen, a jake and a hen and a tom and a hen. I started to think about my decoy set up and what I could do differently to entice one of these open field toms. I decided I would try a “flock of decoys”.

I’m not sure where I got this idea but it just kind of came to me. I wanted to see how an open field tom would react to numerous decoys. I decided to use five. I placed one hen in the mating position with a B-Mobile tom standing behind her about 2 feet away. I placed two more hens about 15 yards away in the feeding position with a jake looking on. I thought it would be the best of both worlds. A mature tom would perhaps challenge the B-Mobile tom for the right to mate with the hen and the other subordinate toms would challenge the jake. I knew one thing for sure, this set up would most likely be something that these toms have not seen this year!

The morning started out very quiet and we did not hear a tom gobble from the roost. About a half hour after sunrise, I finally caught movement across the field from us and saw a hen out feeding in the field. Shortly after 2 more hens came out of the woods and then a tom joined in while strutting for the ladies. The tom was only visible through some brush and most likely could not see our set up. Then some sand hill cranes came squawking in as they landed in the field. The hens did not like this and exited the field with the tom following close behind.

A few minutes later, from the same location, the bachelor boys started to walk out onto the field – 6 jakes. It was comical to watch these young birds jockey for position. I thought they were going to come right in to our set up but they started to head across the field instead. There had to be something that caught their attention. As they made their way, another tom popped out onto the field about 200 yards away from us. It may have been the same tom as before, but he was alone this time. He looked at our set up and continued to walk the field edge going away from us. I let out a couple of soft yelps and got him to stop briefly but he eventually went right back into the woods from where he come from. At this time, I was not too high on my decoy set up!

Shortly after, we found out why the jakes were heading towards the opposite corner of the field. Three hens were now visible and had their attention. As the jakes closed the distance, two more turkeys entered the field by the hens and they were both toms! One tom quickly took a strutting position by the hens while the other tom looked on.

These hens were feeding quickly covering a lot of ground in a short amount of time. They showed no interest in the strutting tom. The tom that was looking on also lost interest and headed back into the woods where he had come from. The jakes were now on the scene looking on as if they might have a chance at one of the hens. Two of them even gobbled and strutted but didn’t even get a reaction from the strutting tom. I was hitting the call pretty aggressively at this time feeling that I had nothing to lose. Finally the strutting tom gave up on the hens too and started to take interest in us. He was over 300 yards away and before we knew it, he closed the distance to 100 yards. Behind him were the 6 jakes. However, the tom then angled towards the woods where the other tom left the field. I hit the call again but could not stop him from exiting the field. Again, I’m not impressed with my decoy set up.

The 6 jakes continued on right towards us. A few minutes passed and the jakes were now only 50 yards out. Tina asked me if she should shoot one and I said “No!” We were only an hour into our hunt on the first day and I was hoping she would hold out for a tom.

About that time we got the surprise of our life. TWO GOBBLES rang out loudly right behind our Command Post Blind! These were the same toms that briefly left the field. Both toms were in the woods and they were close coming from each corner of our blind (where we had the windows shut). I told Tina to get ready and pointed to our left thinking this tom would come out of the woods first. About 10 seconds later, here he comes in full strut walking out of the woods a mere 20 yards away. Tina took her time and readied herself. I let out a soft yelp so the tom would come out of strut and just about that time, Tina put the hammer down on him! Tina’s shot hit the mark and the tom folded up. BTD – Big Tom Down!!!

The jakes looked on with amazement and just stood there about 40 yards away. I quickly yelped again hoping to see the other tom but he did not show himself and then we finally began to celebrate our hunt. What a morning… the time was only 6:20am and we already had a tom on the ground. We also saw 7 hens, 6 jakes and at least 2 other toms. Maybe the flock decoy did the trick after all or…. was it my calling? More on this later…

Tina’s tom weighed in a 21 lbs. and 10 oz, had a 10 inch beard with 7/8 spurs. This tom was one ounce heavier than Tina’s first tom last year! Way to go girl!

Now it was my turn. We hunted casually the rest of that day but did more scouting than actual hunting. We saw a couple of toms about 9am on another farm that we had permission to hunt on and decided this is where we would set up in the morning. Also right before dark, we saw numerous turkeys including 3 different toms in another big field that we did not have permission to hunt on. I knew who owned it and I was hoping that I could get access.

We used the same exact decoy set up as the morning before hoping to get the same results except I was using my bow. We heard three different toms gobble in the roost high on the ridge above us. However, the morning was slow and we eventually seen several hens but no toms were with them. There was an occasional gobble from a field that was around the corner from us, but we decided to stay put in the blind knowing it was hard to put a sneak on a mature gobbler with a bow in your hand. The morning ended at 9am for us and the only excitement we had is when I was arguing with a hen for about 10 minutes. She was literally 10 yards from our blind putting and yelping at me as loud as she could. Every time she would start up, I would cut her off mimicking her sounds. We were really going at it and the distant tom from around the corner was gobbling consistently but yet never did showed himself.

We eventually packed up and started to check out some other fields. We spotted another tom out in the field with a hen and tried to close the distance. However, the woods were extremely noisy and we had a difficult time trying to sneak through the woods. We tried calling but got no response. We decided that we would just leave this tom alone and not bump him.

We then called the landowner of the field that had all of the turkeys on it the night before and we were granted permission! We went by there about 2pm and were excited to see two toms out in the field feeding. We decided to put a stalk on them. This was not going to be easy because we would have to cross a couple of drainage ditches along the way. We cut across a woodlot, crossed one drainage ditch, and belly crawled up to the second drainage ditch. The mosquitoes were bad, it was hot and I was getting frustrated due to the amount of water we were encountering. The second drainage ditch was too deep to cross and it was between us and the two toms that were out in the middle of the field about 200 yards away. Our only hope was to work our way to the end of the drainage ditch and try calling from there. This is where I got impatient. Instead of crawling another 100 yards, I tried scooting from one piece of cover to another piece while the toms had their heads down feeding. Long story short, I got busted by one of the toms and he ran off the field. The other tom stayed put but was on high alert now. I tried calling but he showed no interest. He finally walked off the field in the same exact spot where the other tom went. Tina was not happy with me and she had a good reason not to be. I lost my patience and this time it cost us an opportunity to harvest a tom. However, the good news is that we had another two toms to hunt and most likely they would be back in that same field before dark. We decided we were going to sit out the rest of the day right there in that same field. We changed our sweaty clothes, went into town for some water and pop, got a cooler and mosquito spray. We made our way back into the field, set up the Command Post once again along with our same flock decoy set up. As we were settling in, whispering about where we thought the turkeys would come from – I took a peek out one of the windows to our left and out pops two turkeys onto the field about 250 yards away! I quickly pulled up the binoculars and saw it was the same two toms we had chased off!!! We have been there only 15 minutes! We quickly got our face masks on and positioned our chairs inside the blind. The toms started to make their way out towards the middle of the field and then they finally got a glimpse of our decoy set up. They stared at it for awhile but eventually went back to feeding again. I reached for my slate call and to my amazement; my striker was missing! I couldn’t believe it!!! We looked all over but it was no where to be found! I was furious and started to complain. Tina told me settle down and said “maybe we don’t need it.” I thought to my myself… yeah… right…

The toms started to walk parallel to our set up and were not exactly coming in our direction. Once again, I was cussing about losing my striker. Tina then says “Can you call with your mouth?” I said yeah.. but I thought I had only done that at home while driving her and the kids nuts! I decided it was now or never, and let out a few putts and a soft half-hearted yelp. Both toms heard me; they stared at the decoys for a moment and then on cue started to make their way right in our direction. I couldn’t believe it! They were actually coming in and picking up the pace! I got the gun ready (decided to leave the bow in the truck this time) and anticipated where they would come into our view through the blind window. As they approached, Tina whispered, “my heart is just pounding.” Shortly after, here they come right into our decoy set up. I tried to size them up but couldn’t tell which one was bigger and decided to shoot at the 2nd one simply because he stopped exactly where I wanted him to. The 40 yard shot found its mark and we had our second tom on the ground. The other tom froze and just stood there for about 20 seconds staring at the flopping tom on the ground. We eventually moved in the blind and he finally flew off the field. The flock decoy set up did the trick again (along with my new turkey calling techniques). My tom weighed in at 19lbs. 2 oz., with a 10 inch beard and 7/8 inch spurs. Tina was happy that mine was a little smaller than hers.

Lesson learned for us was to try something different on these late season open field toms. The flock decoy set up was something that these toms probably had not seen this year and even though I would like to think it was my expert mouth calling that did the trick; I know it was the flock decoy that brought them in.

The short two day hunt was over and once again we had a great hunt! Yes, we were very fortunate enough to harvest two toms, but that’s not what it’s all about for us. For two days straight, it was just us spending time together in the blind whispering, talking and laughing while talking about our life together. We talked about our children, our home, our careers and most importantly our relationship. I feel truly blessed to have such a wonderful person in my life with which I can share my passion for hunting. I introduced Tina to turkey hunting two years ago and now she has the same desire as me to chase these magnificent birds! Since that time, I enjoy turkey hunting even more because I have someone to share it with! To see the look on her face when her tom gobbled so close to us was priceless! Hunting for us is building shared memories and that’s exactly what we did.