Turkey Tour 2020

[Aggie PhD]

Working on it now (in between daddy daycare duties, honey-do's, work, and naps)

That is pretty much my life right now. Newborn plus two kids at home.
I have gotten a bunch of small projects done around the house

But I am about to go stir crazy

[Smart]

[ClayW]

That is pretty much my life right now. Newborn plus two kids at home.
I have gotten a bunch of small projects done around the house

But I am about to go stir crazy

#dadlife

I've been holding off from getting stir crazy but I have failed (wife would say big time) on the projects around the house. Turkey season ends next weekend so I'm not sure how much longer I can hold off the list!

[TwoHighways]

Three gobbles heard all morning. Onto the next WMA.

[MASTERS]

Three gobbles heard all morning. Onto the next WMA.

thanks for the pro tip......





























maybe the next one will have feeder for ya

[MASTERS]

What a great morning to be out in the turkey woods. Haven't had a chance to hunt due to being essential but made a quick trip and punched my Eastern tag. It's a great day

Beautiful bird!

[El General]

What a great morning to be out in the turkey woods. Haven't had a chance to hunt due to being essential but made a quick trip and punched my Eastern tag. It's a great day

Great picture and that is a really pretty bird.

[El General]

I’ve had some awesome hunts with PoPo but this one may be my favorite of all time.

I can’t tell you guys how thankful I am for today’s bird

You are a machine, dude. Congrats.

[slayr]

The Sinclair came in today. Thanks for the recs, guys.

[El General]

The Sinclair came in today. Thanks for the recs, guys.

That is pretty.

[basschump]

The Sinclair came in today. Thanks for the recs, guys.

What did you pick?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ClayW]

Ever since hearing of the East Texas Easterns and the (for the most part) failed restocking efforts, I wanted to kill one. Year after year excuses (work, weather, schedule, lack of tags, etc…) and negative press kept me from making the trip. The decision became easier as TPWD continued to push the season opener. In recent years, mid to late April has been spent travelling out of state with PoPo and adding to our memories and list of non-Texas birds.

More of the same was planned this year with hopes of travelling to Nebraska, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. After my daughter getting her turkey during Youth Weekend, Corona hit and put a negative feel to the season. With the new business and some family members being “high risk”, turkey season was no longer a high priority and it had PoPo & I in a funk. As you guys know, we still hunted our local spots and killed a few birds, but the feel was a little off. (I shared this little bit of info to lay out how the East Texas trip came to fruition.)

With all out of state travel cancelled and the birds being in a funk, the local season was getting kind of boring. Late last week, I checked the and saw the weather was looking perfect for the Eastern Opener. I jokingly mentioned it PoPo and he blew it off as another one of my crazy ideas. I started looking over my notes and pins on OnX and the interest & courage continued to grow. After mentioning it on here and having Jaspermac confirm the birds really do exist, I decided to make it happen.

I ran it by the boss and she gave me the green light so it was on. I originally planned on leaving Wednesday morning but after seeing the weather forecast for that afternoon, I opted to get there in time for the morning hunt. That would require leaving NB at midnight. Most said it was crazy idea but I backed it up with super low expectations and telling myself “it’ll be good to just be out there”. I picked my dead-end road where I wanted to park the truck and the plan was set.

Expectations:

As confident I am in my turkey hunting ability, its hard to explain how low of expectations I had for this trip. Whether its reading about mixed results on the restocking efforts, low harvest numbers, negative press from fellow hunters, or just the vast acreage and not even knowing where to begin, I convinced myself of the following:
1) I’m thankful just to be out there.
2) I’ll be happy with hearing a gobble or just finding sign I can build on for the next trip.
3) Don’t get discouraged and at least hunt until Friday morning but be prepared to hunt however long it takes
4) Put in the miles!

I wanted to get a few hours of sleep before I left so the plan was to get the kiddos down early, pack, and then try to sleep by 9 or 9:30. Chelska pulled rank and took a solo trip to the lakekhouse last minute leaving me with the afternoon/evening parenting duties. Of course this delayed dinner, kiddos bedtime, and packing the truck. I finally laid down about 10:40 and instead of setting an alarm, I told siri “set timer for 1 hour and 10 minutes”!

As you can imagine, 11:50pm came a little fast but the excitement had me ready to hit the road. The drive was super easy as it was only I and a few truckers on the road. A safe and uneventful trip had me hitting the forest road right at 5:15. As I neared my spot, I saw 2 trucks parked on the side of the road. These guys beat me and I would have to make an adjustment. I talked with them for a few minutes but then had to pull out the map to find a new spot. Just a few miles away there was another area I had marked that had quite a bit of elevation change and a few creeks running through it. Lucky for me, there was nobody parked at that road. To make it even better, the forest road was extremely muddy so I knew the chance of anyone coming in from the other direction was slim. Unless someone would walk a long way (3-4 miles) or have a monster truck, I would have a good chunk of land all to myself.

6am had me about a mile from the truck near one of the nobs ready to hear that much anticipated GOBBLE! It was a little humid and overcast, but it was a PERFECT morning. As expected, no gobbles.

One thing I didn’t mention earlier was my hunting approach that I committed to. I told myself that I would be extra cautious and patient, but that I would be strategically aggressive if need be. I had to keep reminding myself that I am not hunting Rios and that Easterns can be more stubborn when it comes to committing to the call. When it came to patience, I would not cover too much land at too fast of a pace. When I say I wanted to be aggressive, I mean that I would have to get ouf of my comfort level and possibly get in tight on a gobbling bird. These are “running & gunning” tactics that you see on YouTube but they are not utilized by me on a consistent basis. We almost exclusively bowhunt our Rios and I force myself to be patient with the popup. If I’m without a popup, I have years of history and scouting the flocks to convince me to stay put. When it comes to being aggressive, I can probably count on one hand how many times I have “closed the distance” on a Rio and killed him. Its just not something we typically do. I also told myself that if I was lucky enough to find a gobbling bird, I would go all-in on that bird until I either killed him or ran out of time.

Back to the morning….sticking with my plan, I stayed put until I was confident the birds have flown down. I think I continued walking around 6:50. My plan was to slowly work down the forest road to the edge of the private land, work that edge to the other private, then circle all the way back to the truck. I let out a few soft clucks as I went.

It felt like a long time, but it was less than 15 minutes later that I thought I heard a gobble. (I originally thought the first gobble was around 7:20 but my Garmin watch confirmed the first spike in heart rate at 7:02) For you turkey hunters, you know the feeling when you think you heard a gobble, but you aren’t sure. Couple that feeling with my situation of low expectations in East Texas and I was convinced it wasn’t a gobble. I stood there motionless for a few minutes and let out a few clucks….he HAMMERED back immediately. With the elevation change, I didn’t get a good pin on him until after he gobbled a few more times. Once I knew his location, it was questionable if he was on public so I stayed put and wanted him to make a move.

A few moments later, it was clear he was not leaving his spot. I pulled the map back out and sure enough, there was a perfect area that I felt he was holding on. On the map, the spot had a nob about 80’ higher than the surroundings and then had 2 fingers coming off towards the creek bottom. I assumed him to be on the backside of one of the fingers. This put him at 650 yards from my current location (at the time, I thought much closer but confirmed distance after the fact from Onx).

I assumed he would not work down to me at a lower elevation, so I had to get up on his level. As luck would have it, there was plenty of thick undergrowth between us and the forest road was heading uphill. At 7:25 I was on his level and maintained a solid pin on him. At this time, he began going nuts. I’m talking gobbling his head off!!! I guess he knew I was there and he wanted me to come to him. He hadn’t moved in almost 20 minutes so I slowly began heading his way. Keep in mind that I haven’t called to him since those first couple of clucks around 7:05. When I started going directly towards him, he was 410 yards away (again, I was way off on the real time distance).

(My initial recollection had my distances and time frame cut in half. I originally thought he gobbled at 7:20 and thought he was within 200 yards. Reviewing my pins on OnX and heart rate from my watch, I confirmed the time frame. I am still surprised at how far away he was when I first heard him gobble and how wrong I was. Hindsight tells me that had I not taking it slow, I for sure would have bumped him)

As I slowly made my way through the thick jungle, he continued to gobble. I’d go a few yards then stop and listen. I could see the top of the nob so I was confident in my stealthy approach towards him. 210 yards into my stalk and at 7:33am, the jungle opened up into a picture perfect creek bottom…just like the ones we see on TV. I dropped the vest and bino harness, picked out a large pine tree, and began crawling.

Just before reaching the tree, he wasn’t gobbling. I don’t know this exact amount of time but I recall there being a long break in the gobbling. I’m sure it was only a minute or 2 but at the time it felt like forever. It turns out my stealthy stalk must have made just enough noise to convince him that I was a hen. To break the silence, and for only the 2nd time, I called to him. It was a VERY soft, 3 note yelp. The next thing I heard was him drumming!!!!!!! He had closed the distance and fast!

At this very second, I knew one of 2 things were about to happen; 1) Dead turkey or 2) More likely, a spooked turkey. I had significantly miscalculated the elevation change on the bottom side of the nob. My focus was straight forward at equal elevation where I could see 40 yards. (My little 20ga can lay a turkey down at 50) His drumming was way too loud to be 50 yards away. The problem is, I did not notice the small impression just 20 yards in front of me. For some reason, this old bird went low, then followed that little low spot up to me. While I was scanning from 10:00 to 1:00, I see his big ol head at the 2:00 position. And he was close!!!

Lucky for me (again), I was concealed, and he had no idea I was there. I was 99% sure this was a longbeard but I have been wrong before. I wanted to see more of him before taking the shot. As his head went behind a tree, I slowly raised up, confirmed target, and pulled the trigger at 7:46am. The shot was less than 20 yards!

A quick sprint and a few hurdles later, I had my hands on him. I gave thanks, called Chelska, and sat down for over an hour soaking it all in. (PoPo received back to back phone calls but he didn’t answer at work.)

I’ve racked my brain and I cannot remember a turkey that had me as jacked up, emotional, and/or proud. The current Corona situation, crazy decision to make the trip, luck of hunting that spot, and the way he played the game makes him probably my favorite one yet. Looking back at my heart rate from yesterday, it tells the story of how the day unfolded. Heart rate jumped to 108 at 7:02 (first gobble) spiked to 130 at 7:38 (about the time I hear him drum), then a big spike to 145 from 7:45 to 7:50 (moment I pulled the trigger to getting off the phone with Chelska).

I’ll close this thing out by acknowledging that yesterday I was for sure the luckiest turkey hunter in the state and maybe even the country. Lots of things had to fall into place for that hunt to unfold and I am extremely grateful that it did.

I saw something on FB the other day of deer hunters trying to compare deer hunting to turkey hunting….I didn’t realize it until yesterday that they were all right, There is no comparison!

[ClayW]

The Sinclair came in today. Thanks for the recs, guys.

She's pretty....how does she sound?

[El General]

Great write up!

[myway]

Great write up! Sounds like a well deserved bird and I suspect your over selling some of the luck. Congrats!