DWilk
Active Member
Hey guys. Thought I'd share the hunt a couple buddies and I had on the final weekend of Iowa's 4th season. It was a fun hunt with great friends and some cool video to boot!
If you want to watch the video, follow this link: S2.W20 "The Switch, Decapitation"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chris (sureshot), Cody Bonner, and myself teamed up on the Saturday of the final weekend in Iowa and had an action packed morning to say the least. Cody spotted three toms and a gaggle of jakes the day prior showing off in a food plot on one of their properties, so we decided to pack three of us in the blind and try our luck the morning of May 18th. I still pocketed both my Iowa tags and Cody had one bow tag left to fill. Chris was tagged out and volunteered to man the camera. We packed in an Avian X spread with a strutter in hopes of attracting a pair or more of toms into the decoys. (It still amazes me how much gear we can pack into a turkey hunt!)
We were confident in the birds’ roosting ridge, and sure enough as night started to lighten, birds were sounding off not 200 yards to our South. We knew we were in a great spot; If the birds were going to leave the timber at all, it was only a matter of time before we had a visual. About an hour into the sit, two toms made their way over a rise and into the view of our decoys. I’m not sure what to reason it on, but they just wouldn’t commit…. hanging up at 100-120 yards for awhile before disappearing back over the rise. I suspect there were hens out of our vantage point and/or these toms just weren’t very dominant, but either way, they were gone.
While throwing our best moves at the 2 longbeards to our southwest, we kept getting responses from a tom behind the blind (or so we thought) that seemed to be closing the distance. After a while, we realized what we were hearing behind us wasn’t a tom but a group of 3 jakes that gobbled simultaneously every time….. larger jakes gobbling in unison and sounding just like a big tom gobble and it tricked all three of us.
We let the jakes mill around in the decoys for the better part of a half an hour…. they got comfortable and wouldn’t leave….gobbling, feeding…. all at 5-10 yards.
We had no intention of killing any of them, but after a while we decided maybe we should try something. Cody had a bullhead in his quiver and I still had a bow tag so we decided to switch roles and see if I could smack one of these jakes in the head. Go figure, but we managed to successfully pull the ‘switch’, and I killed one of the jakes with Cody’s bow at about 5 steps! I’ve killed plenty of toms over the years, but this jake hunt ranks well up there in the excitement factor and I have no regrets tripping the release. It was a blast, and I hope you enjoy the footage as it was some of the best close-up turkey video we’ve ever gotten!
- Derek
If you want to watch the video, follow this link: S2.W20 "The Switch, Decapitation"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chris (sureshot), Cody Bonner, and myself teamed up on the Saturday of the final weekend in Iowa and had an action packed morning to say the least. Cody spotted three toms and a gaggle of jakes the day prior showing off in a food plot on one of their properties, so we decided to pack three of us in the blind and try our luck the morning of May 18th. I still pocketed both my Iowa tags and Cody had one bow tag left to fill. Chris was tagged out and volunteered to man the camera. We packed in an Avian X spread with a strutter in hopes of attracting a pair or more of toms into the decoys. (It still amazes me how much gear we can pack into a turkey hunt!)
We were confident in the birds’ roosting ridge, and sure enough as night started to lighten, birds were sounding off not 200 yards to our South. We knew we were in a great spot; If the birds were going to leave the timber at all, it was only a matter of time before we had a visual. About an hour into the sit, two toms made their way over a rise and into the view of our decoys. I’m not sure what to reason it on, but they just wouldn’t commit…. hanging up at 100-120 yards for awhile before disappearing back over the rise. I suspect there were hens out of our vantage point and/or these toms just weren’t very dominant, but either way, they were gone.
While throwing our best moves at the 2 longbeards to our southwest, we kept getting responses from a tom behind the blind (or so we thought) that seemed to be closing the distance. After a while, we realized what we were hearing behind us wasn’t a tom but a group of 3 jakes that gobbled simultaneously every time….. larger jakes gobbling in unison and sounding just like a big tom gobble and it tricked all three of us.
We let the jakes mill around in the decoys for the better part of a half an hour…. they got comfortable and wouldn’t leave….gobbling, feeding…. all at 5-10 yards.
We had no intention of killing any of them, but after a while we decided maybe we should try something. Cody had a bullhead in his quiver and I still had a bow tag so we decided to switch roles and see if I could smack one of these jakes in the head. Go figure, but we managed to successfully pull the ‘switch’, and I killed one of the jakes with Cody’s bow at about 5 steps! I’ve killed plenty of toms over the years, but this jake hunt ranks well up there in the excitement factor and I have no regrets tripping the release. It was a blast, and I hope you enjoy the footage as it was some of the best close-up turkey video we’ve ever gotten!
- Derek
