Anita’s WI Turkey

I was invited by friends Scott and Anita to join them on Anita’s turkey hunt this past Saturday near Menomonie, WI. I jumped at the chance as I knew Anita wanted to try to get her first turkey with her new Hoyt bow she just got from her husband for her birthday.

I arrived at their house at 5:00 a.m. and it was a short ride on the ATV to where we made the hike over the ridge and to the Covert blind. Scott’s property line is about 20 yards away from the field edge we were hunting and he hadn’t gotten permission to hunt the field edge, so we were hoping to the pull 6 tom’s they saw the previous morning into our set.

As the sun began to rise it was apparent that the birds had roosted in a totally different location than the morning before. Instead of being across the valley they had roosted closer to the blind and to our right. We could hear the hens sounding off early and watched as they flew into the middle of the field. The first birds of the morning were 3 hens and two jakes. We watched them for quite a while before they slowly moved to our right but stayed out in the field road.

We could hear the other birds as they made their way from the roost and headed away from us, following a very vocal hen. It was around 7:30 or so that we could hear that group making there way back to us and we knew the game was back on. They were definitely closing the distance fast so we got ourselves organized in the blind and ready for a possible shot. Anita is the first to see them as they are now sprinting to our calls…2 nice toms all fanned out and on a dead run to our location. The only problem is that we are on the property line 20 yards inside the woods. Unfortunately these birds along with the 3 other toms following behind them would hold up on the fields edge. I don’t think they could see our decoys but they could sure hear us. But our calls fell on deaf ears as they turned and began following the hens they were with. After about a half an hour they were lead back in the direction from which they came. If only we had gotten permission to sit on the field I believe Anita would have gotten her shot.

At this point it was decided we would head back and grab an early lunch and then head out for some running and gunning. The spaghetti definitely hit the spot and after watching some hunting videos, we put the bow away and opted for the 12 gauge instead.

We began our search for the same birds we left that morning but were unable to locate them. We had heard someone cutting wood in that same area and with the wind that had picked up quite a bit, we decided to move onto greener pastures. That turned out to be a great move. We had to make our way across some wide open country to get to this ridge top with a green field running the entire length of the ridge.

After making a few calls it was apparent that it was nearly impossible to hear if any bird responded to our calls. I suggest we split up where they walk one side of the ridge and call and I walk the other side. Well we were not separated longer than 5 minutes when I hit the box call and hear gobbles not 100 yards away from me. I run across the field to get their attention and get set up. (I’m not sure why they are smiling/almost laughing at me when I’m running….like they have never seen a fat guy run before).

We get the decoys out and set up with Scott about 15 yards down from Anita and me and to our right. After some calling it takes the birds about 10 minutes to close the distance from our left. As they make there way to our set up I can tell that they are jakes. They come strutting all the way into our set up and put on quite a show for us. Knowing that Anita was not going to hunt Sunday, she had already made up her mind she would take a jake if the opportunity presented itself. The birds circled our jake decoy and finally separated enough for her to put the smack down on one of them. Lucky for the other one she didn’t have another tag because he stuck around long enough to stomp on his buddy while doing a little gobbling to boot.

I just want to thank both Scott and Anita for allowing me to tag along with them on their hunt. It was a great hunt with great friends and I look forward to doing it again soon.