Talking Turkey in 2006
By Tony Kuehn © 2006

This year was the fourth time in my life I have hunted turkeys. I am old enough to recall when they were first re-introduced about 30 years ago. I didn’t get around to hunting them for the first time until 1993. At that time the big concentration of birds was in the Southeastern part of the state and when I told friends and family I was hunting them with a bow after the second year they thought I was nuts. Those first two seasons proved to be relatively unsuccessful. While I did see some birds I recall being very frustrated by; the amount of work it took to get to the ridges that held some birds, the limited hunting period (toms always showed up 5-10 minutes after 12:00), and the overall stealth of the birds in avoiding my attempts to locate them. The third time I hunted them I had birds in front of me but not close enough to shoot. However, I did watch a friend sitting next to me take bird with his gun last year and that was pretty exciting.

Dad’s Little Helper

Minnesota has a healthy turkey population stretching as far North as Thief River Falls. I attended a seminar given by a Madelia researcher a few years ago and it seems there isn’t that big of a geographical barrier to the turkey’s range. If they can find adequate food they can survive temps in the range of -50 degrees F or worse. Recently, the Twin Cities news channels where covering a story about the wild turkey hanging out at Galtier Plaza in downtown St. Paul. There also have been recent stories of a business man being chased down a sidewalk on his way to work and schoolchildren being harassed by toms at their bus stop. Plenty of birds in local parks and hobby farms surrounding the metro too. The expanding population also means more birds in the more remote areas where I like to hunt and it opens up more possibilities for landowner access as they are starting to get concerned that there are too many turkeys. Remember when Canadian honkers first started coming back? Now look at them! Hunting is a good way to keep the populations in check and landowners quickly get the picture. I think the predators catch on too as there seem to be plenty of hawks, owls and coyotes in the area as well.

My 2nd Home for 5 Days

One of my neighbors living on a farm had plenty of birds and was willing to let me hunt this year. There is a lot of public land in the area too so I would be able to move around and follow the birds if I had to. I had scouted the area and been taking pictures of the birds for a few months ahead of the season. If I drew a permit, I would get to hunt when I wanted to instead of Yelp! Yelp, They Coming Yet? buying an over the counter license for the last two weeks of the season (archery permit) like I did last year. As luck would have it, I drew a tag for the third season April 22-26. After confirming the date with the landowner we took a tour of the property and I set my blind a fewA Couple of Hens Snooping Around up days ahead of season. My daughter and I spooked a few birds while we completed the set-up. They were topping the hill to come over to their evening feeding area. I drove by the blind a few times that week and occasionally saw turkeys in front of the blind so we didn’t seem to spook them too bad. I would have to wait until the first day of the hunt to see if they would stay in the area.

On the first day of my season the weather was recovering from a recent rainstorm. The blind was wet and it was rather windy. I walked to my blind and set out 2 hen decoys about 12 yards away. I ducked into the blind and soon found out I hadn’t dressed warm enough for the morning chill or the moisture being driven out of the blind into my black cotton clothing. Not wanting to change into camo, I just toughed it out. The gobbling in the area started about ½ hour before sunrise. Birds were calling from 3-4 directions and didn’t seem too far away. I started off with a quiet “tree call” on the slate and then followed that up with periodic yelping on a double striker box call and a diaphragm. I received many return gobbles but it wasn’t until about 8:00 until I saw my first bird. A single hen came in to the decoys poked around for a while and then left.

Live or Memorex?

 

 

Big Tom at Dawn

 

 

The rest of the morning was uneventful. I left for a while to go home and warm up and returned with my four year old daughter. When we were walking out to the blind we spooked a decent bird who was feeding close by. About 2 hours later we saw another one in the area about 150 yards away. She actually got pretty good with the double striker box call but the bird wouldn’t move in any closer.

On the second day of my season the weather was much nicer. The wind had calmed down and temps were going to be above normal. Similar to the first outing the gobbling started rather early. I saw plenty of birds and missed a 25 yard shot at a younger tom. He was in a group of 8 birds who blind-sided me while I was coaxing the older tom down off of the hill to the decoys. The tom had hung-up at about 80 yards and wouldn’t come any closer.

The Field Staff Shows Up to Assist

 

Safety in Numbers and Distance

After my botched shots (yes, plural) he still hung around strutting and gobbling til’ he dropped over the hill with the rest of the birds. About ½ hour later the whole flock paraded in front of the blind being smart enough to keep their distance at over 50 yards. I didn’t hunt that evening and decided to change the set-up slightly for the next morning.

The third day of the hunt I arrived about 1/2 hour earlier and set the decoys around the corner of the blind. If that big tom came over the hill again he would have to do a “J hook” around some cover and get closer to the blind if he wanted the girls (decoys I have named Marylin and Henrietta ) to see him strut. As in the last two days, the gobbling started early but quit just as soon as the construction team started up their equipment about ¾ mile away. They were working on grubbing and clearing a site and brought in all the heavy equipment. It had been on display for about a month and I was hoping they wouldn’t get Who Is on Deck? started until after my hunt. With all the noise I am sure they startled the birds. I really didn’t want to listen to

that all morning and was losing my confidence in hanging around. Perhaps I would go over to the public land and try there for a while. I decided to stick around since it was too late to move someplace else and get in on the morning movement. The three hens I had seen yesterday came by and didn’t seem too distressed by all the noise. It was really quiet for a number of hours and I limited my calling to periods when the engines of the machines winded down. Never did get a response call.

About 9:00 AM, just like on any other construction Who is On Deck? site, the crew took a coffee break and shut the machines down for a while. Just then the big tom showed up on the hillside and gobbled for all he was worth. Probably didn’t like the construction crew messing up his morning either. I did some return yelps and a few light mews, keekees and purring. That really flipped his switch. He started walking down the hill for a better look. I started to pray that the coffee break would be longer than 10 minutes and that I would shoot well. After watching my arrows drop farther than expected on my first two attempts I decided I was not going to shoot through the screen but use the openings in my Double Bull blind instead. That would mean that the tom would have to even be closer so I could cut off the angle of the shot. I continued purring and copying the noises I heard the hens making earlier. It really worked well.

When the tom got within the twenty yard circle I stopped calling and began my draw. I waited until his head was behind one of the panels just to be sure he wouldn’t spot the movement. When he re-emerged in the blind opening I was looking through I was already at full draw and able to focus on the vitals (base of the wings) quite well. He fanned out once more and started in with his pfffffft, sizzzzzz, and I let him have it at 18 yards, broadside. The arrow quickly zipped through his vitals breaking both wing bones (humurus on one side, ulna on the other) and he fell over hardly making a flop. I nocked another arrow just in case but it was quickly apparent that I wasn’t going to need it. He was done for. After a quick thank you to God and St. Hubertus, I walked out to the bird with my heart still racing.

The tom was 22# 4 oz. and sported an 8 ½” beard. The spurs had good size and were very sharp. His face and wings were a little torn up (even before I shot him) and he is a nice trophy any way you look at it. I was lucky enough that he had all of the 18 fan feathers intact. If I get the chance next year (or perhaps even this fall) I will hunt turkeys again. It took four attempts to get bird but now I am hooked on it. I might even consider going hunting with friends in South Dakota, Nebraska and even one from Alaska who travels South to hunts the birds in Minnesota and Missouri. They can still call me nuts but now I have the pictures to prove it can be done with a bow. Next time I might even try my recurve or longbow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

         More Than Enough Birds to Two More for Next
              Spark My Interest Year Perhaps?

Tony’s Set-Up:
Bow: Bear Code, quad limb, single cam, mobile sight, set at 66#
Arrows: Beman ICS 400 Hunter, feathers, full length inserts (Carbon Express 2 grains per inch)
Broad heads: Muzzy 115 grain 4 blade, with 10 grain washer (125 grain total)
Blind: Double Bull T5 Prostaff, black screen cover
Calls: Quaker Easy Yelper, HS Strut Slate & Striker, Lohman’s Triple reed mouth call, and           whatever the three hens were using
Decoys: Delta and Flambeau collapsible
Clothing: Black jeans and T-Shirt mask over a sweater (Walmart specials) in the morning,               Mossy Oak camo in the afternoons
Electronics: Fujifilm FinePix S 5000 Camera 3.1 MB, Bushnell Rangefinder

NOTE: All birds were hunted and photographed in the wild with the presence of the normal predators such as hawks, owls, coyotes and foxes. Other hunters also utilize the area.