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After the Cow incident and having heard a number of birds roosting in the trees below the fields I decided to abandon my setups in the pastures surrounding the alfalfa fields and go directly into the woods.
It took me a while to find the right spot but I finally found an area with acorns and lots of scratchings. I set up there.
I placed four decoys, 1 tom and 3 hens and kept them on the opposite side of the blind from the anticipated direction the turkeys would come from. Most of this setup was in preparation of a long Saturday hunt.
At 4:30 p.m. I heard some noise behind the blind, I peeked out and there was a flock of birds scratching for acorns. I readied two shooting windows on my Hide-Out blind and took out my diaphragm call. The birds were heading away from me so I tried a gobbler yelp which had worked in the past. Unfortunately it only seemed to push the birds away. With quick thinking I switched to a very distressed kee kee run and two hens ran right up to the blind.
They worked their way around the blind at 15 yards as I readied for a shot on the left side - among the decoys. The bird alarm putted and hung up behind a tree. Instead of waiting for her, I leaned back to look out the right window and the bigger hen was wide open at 12 yards. I eased the point of my arrow over to that window and drew slowly while focusing on a single breast feather. The turkey remained motionless as I continued to focus. I was now at full draw with my middle finger buried in my lip. I released and the arrow passed through the turkey at the exact spot I was focusing on. The turkey dropped in its tracks!
I ran out of the blind in case she tried to run but the big hen was stone cold dead from a perfect heart shot. I was pumped! This was the first turkey I had ever got and I got it with a bow. My 1998 goal was to harvest a wild turkey and I did it. Now the only bad part is having no more tags.
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