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Help me out, fellas

MadisonB&C

MadisonB&C

Active Member
Arrowed a good tom tonight. He came in with two other birds and I stuck him at about 25 yards. The shot felt good, and I thought I saw the arrow hit in the vitals. He went down and flopped for four or five seconds them laid still. By no means did he look alive. I waited a few minutes then climbed down. I had just got to the ground when he thrashed just a little bit, so I knocked an arrow and looked down at my string so I could clip on my release. Well, what do you know. I look up and, by golly, that bird is running into the woods, albeit in a rather slow and ungainly fashion. In hindsight, I should have just run him down. My arrow is coated nicely with blood, and there is a football size pool of blood where he had been laying. I let him be for 45 minutes, then looked for him, with the help of a cousin and his friend. By then the light was beginning to fail, so we weren't able to look far. If anybody has a tip on tracking wounded turkies, I'd appreciate. A quick prayer or two would go long way as well. With any kind of luck, I'll be posting in the Harvest Report tomorrow.
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Look inheavy cover and under deadfall and do grids like you would shed hunting , cover some ground in the area that you think he might be and you'll find him. Turkeys have about a qaurt of blood in them if its a mature tom, good luck with your search and bring on the pics tomorrow. Good luck bud!!! and congrats!!!
 
UGH, tracking turkes is tough. grids and check all trees and windfalls. go to where you last saw him and then go downwind of that area and search, you may get lucky and smell him out. also, go farther than you think he went, turkeys are tougher than we give them credit for. keep at it, persistance is the key.
 
I have used my bird dogs to find wounded turkeys before. Usually the day after to make sure they are dead as I don't want to get one spurred by a big old tom. It might not be the best idea if you are gonna use this place to hunt deer in the next few days. Good luck and hope you find him.
 
Thanks for the help, but we didn't have any luck at all. Not finding that bird makes me feel awful low, but that's life. Good luck filling your tags guys.
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Madison,
I shot a tom last spring with a shotgun and had the same thing happen.Sometime's it's just the nature of the game.If you gave it an honest effort in the search and did everything you could to find him you should get back out there with a cleared head and try to fill your tag.Anyone who hunt's any kind of wild game is going to have it happen at some point.So GET BACK OUT THERE and fill that tag!We all know that your a ethical person and did what you could to find him.
GOOD LUCK,
I'm going out tomarrow.
 
First I recommend running to the bird at the shot. I've never seen a good blood trail from a gobbler. I once ran one down and finally jumped on top of him after over a 100 yards.

When that doesn't work do the intensive search especially in heavy cover. Last spring I looked for one for over an hour scouring a timber. I even found a shed I'd missed earlier. I eventually found him dead near where he'd gone out of sight. He'd crawled under a multifloral rose bush so thick I had to crawl and clip a path to get in there and recover him. What looks like a big black bird standing there can be very camoflaged once trying to hide.
 
No other advise on this bird other than what's already been given. Congrats at least for sticking with it and trying to find him.

I've not used them but the "dental floss" turkey tracker string that attaches to your arrow always seemed like a good idea ... if I go for turks with a bow, I think I'll give them a try. Haven't had that problem using number 5 Winchester Turkey Mags



threebeards
 
Don't feel bad, Madison. I lost a beautiful tom this spring during shotgun season. Longer shot than I probably should have taken. He went down hard and flopped around, but regained his composure in time to beat me in a footrace for the trees. Looked for an hour and a half and only found one feather. It's hard on a hunter to lose any animal, but if you hunt long enough, it will probably happen sooner or later. Better luck next time.
 
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