It certainly was one very memorable year filming and hunting turkeys this year. I hunted and/or filmed over 30 days covering 3 states (MT, WI and MN). I was fortunate and harvested a tom in each state (1 merriam and 2 easterns) and my MN tom was a bow kill. I also filmed/called/witnessed 5 other gobbler kills this spring. The memories and relationships that were built along the way is the thing that I will cherish the most.
Here were some of the keys to our success:
Scouting – We spend numerous hours scouting turkeys before our season starts. It’s important to understand their roosting areas, travel patterns, strutting zones, feeding areas, nesting areas and even where they have their dusting bowls.
Don’t push it:
We take extreme measures not to push these toms – ever. If they are not responding to our calls, we back out and hunt them later in the day or another day. Only one time this entire season we were busted by a tom and that is one of the things that I most proud of.
Bowhunting:
We use blinds and dress completely in black and I truly love the Gamehide reversable black archer shirt. I also like to shoot through the mesh of my Covert blind because it allows me to draw back my bow without being detected.
For the last two years, I’ve been using 5 decoys in my setup when using my bow. I like to use a full strut tom with a bedded hen off to one side and on the other side I use a jake with 2 hens (alert and feeding). Reason being is if the dominant tom shows up, he will approach the full strutter. If a subordinate tom shows up, then hopefully he will approach the jake with the two hens. I’m having some good success and once the toms see the decoys, they commit (8 kills).
Calling:
This year more than ever, I’ve really mixed up my calls in varying sequences (box calls, slate calls and mouth calls). I learned a lot and realized that every tom doesn’t like the same call. In MT, we also had success yelping back and forth with one another. I was using a box call and little g was using a slate call. We were just mimicking two hens talking to one another and we ended up killing both of our merriams this way. I also used Jeff Fredrick’s Custom Mouth Calls this year and they are truly awesome!
Patience and persistence:
Only 2 of the 8 toms were killed within the first couple of hours after daylight. The others were killed at various times throughout the day. If you are only hunting in the mornings, you are missing out on some great hunting. Two of the toms were spotted out in the field. We watched them until they entered the woods, gave them an hour and then set up between them and their projected roosting area. Worked like a charm both times!
I want to thank Joel Nelson, Kooty, gutone4me, Rick Liefring, little g, Kirk Peterson, Mike Pearson, Dan Pearson, Danielle Pearson, my son – Ian and my wife – Tina for all of the awesome memories! It will be a season that I will cherish for a very long time.