Rudd
Life Member
My neighbor is a crazed turkey hunter. When he offered to guide me this spring and with my pathetic turkey career I had to take him up on it. Keep in mind I have hunted turkeys for over 10 years, I hate'em.
The first 5 or so years were a poor un-educated attempt at turkey hunting. A few close calls but could never seal the deal. I finally found some ground around Maquoketa and harvested a my first jake. Feeling a little better about my new found luck I opted to have my brother the following season take my lucky spot and sure enough he smokes a 28lb'r. I hunted later the same day and took my nap and sure enough a big brute of a bird is strutting some 80 yards away. I get his attention with what I thought was a great sounding call....here he comes.....on a rope.....I am in a ground blind....I raise up and shoot, knowing the decoy is 30yds away. I jump up in excitement and he's still standing. I shoot 2 more times missing worse with each blast. That was a turning point in my hunting. I closed the wrong eye and the misses proved that. I then sold/traded all my right handed equipment and went lefty. Best move I have made. I killed another jake and a bearded hen the next few years. Now to confuse the mix, Springs are tough.....daughter's dance recitals and a string of bad luck.....a 3' flooded basement with a 8 month pregnant wife, a 12x20 roofed dog run flipped upside down, wifes health issues....let's face it......I got plenty of excuses. Well I shoot a lot of archery and I was damn sure I could shoot one. Well back a couple years ago I came back from Texas with the IW guys and had some Psychotic nerve issues. I was on some pretty good meds and needless to say my gut was a mess. Another friend decided to take me down south and try my luck on my first archery bird. First morning out, here come 2 toms, perfect, they decide to leave a perfect alfalfa field and come from behind us in some thick crap, we manage to maneuver around for me to get a shot. Sure enough I get one off and it sounds like I shot stump, I drilled him (or so I thought), feathers everywhere and this freak slowly walks off. We get out, no blood what-so-ever. Then 4 jakes come in, just plain miss. I would go into further detail but I think it's deep enough. Let's just say me and not eating and medicines that you are to take with food don't mix. I screwed up on 2 other tom's. So after that fiasco I decided this year (2006) was going to back to the shotgun. Which brings me to this years bird and my neighbor.
He was confident we could get on some birds. We'd hunt 1st season, Wed/Thurs. We got to camp Tuesday night....sure enough a good thunderstorm rolls through. Up at 4, birds were tight lipped and by mid morning we could see plenty of birds out in the sun. We hunted hard and had several close calls. Nothing came in. Satisfied with just being away from it all and enjoying the outdoors we had a good supper and were back up at 4 and busted several birds on the long walk in. This day was a total opposite, gobblers everywhere. We set up in one spot and my neighbor decided we weren't close enough. We moved another 50 yards. It was good but something made me move "a little closer". I parked myself in a pasture against a tree that was fairly open. I had a huge brush pile between me and the creek and then the gobbles started continuously. I had one within 100yds of me directly on the other side. I was hoping he was curious to come check out the neighbors calls. I heard several fly down and one to my right sounded like he was interested enough. Few short minutes later I catch a white head just over the crest of the hill. He was 40 yards and coming in. I decided I needed the gun barrel to split the tree so if he came on the left I'd go left.....on the right, right. I caught a glimpse again and he was coming on the right I had the beed on him and was pondering on shooting him in full strut.....when the neighbor prrrr'd very softly, his head lurched forward and I squeezed the trigger. 10yds. I breathed a sigh of relief and the monkey left my back.
24lbs, 9.75" beard
The first 5 or so years were a poor un-educated attempt at turkey hunting. A few close calls but could never seal the deal. I finally found some ground around Maquoketa and harvested a my first jake. Feeling a little better about my new found luck I opted to have my brother the following season take my lucky spot and sure enough he smokes a 28lb'r. I hunted later the same day and took my nap and sure enough a big brute of a bird is strutting some 80 yards away. I get his attention with what I thought was a great sounding call....here he comes.....on a rope.....I am in a ground blind....I raise up and shoot, knowing the decoy is 30yds away. I jump up in excitement and he's still standing. I shoot 2 more times missing worse with each blast. That was a turning point in my hunting. I closed the wrong eye and the misses proved that. I then sold/traded all my right handed equipment and went lefty. Best move I have made. I killed another jake and a bearded hen the next few years. Now to confuse the mix, Springs are tough.....daughter's dance recitals and a string of bad luck.....a 3' flooded basement with a 8 month pregnant wife, a 12x20 roofed dog run flipped upside down, wifes health issues....let's face it......I got plenty of excuses. Well I shoot a lot of archery and I was damn sure I could shoot one. Well back a couple years ago I came back from Texas with the IW guys and had some Psychotic nerve issues. I was on some pretty good meds and needless to say my gut was a mess. Another friend decided to take me down south and try my luck on my first archery bird. First morning out, here come 2 toms, perfect, they decide to leave a perfect alfalfa field and come from behind us in some thick crap, we manage to maneuver around for me to get a shot. Sure enough I get one off and it sounds like I shot stump, I drilled him (or so I thought), feathers everywhere and this freak slowly walks off. We get out, no blood what-so-ever. Then 4 jakes come in, just plain miss. I would go into further detail but I think it's deep enough. Let's just say me and not eating and medicines that you are to take with food don't mix. I screwed up on 2 other tom's. So after that fiasco I decided this year (2006) was going to back to the shotgun. Which brings me to this years bird and my neighbor.
He was confident we could get on some birds. We'd hunt 1st season, Wed/Thurs. We got to camp Tuesday night....sure enough a good thunderstorm rolls through. Up at 4, birds were tight lipped and by mid morning we could see plenty of birds out in the sun. We hunted hard and had several close calls. Nothing came in. Satisfied with just being away from it all and enjoying the outdoors we had a good supper and were back up at 4 and busted several birds on the long walk in. This day was a total opposite, gobblers everywhere. We set up in one spot and my neighbor decided we weren't close enough. We moved another 50 yards. It was good but something made me move "a little closer". I parked myself in a pasture against a tree that was fairly open. I had a huge brush pile between me and the creek and then the gobbles started continuously. I had one within 100yds of me directly on the other side. I was hoping he was curious to come check out the neighbors calls. I heard several fly down and one to my right sounded like he was interested enough. Few short minutes later I catch a white head just over the crest of the hill. He was 40 yards and coming in. I decided I needed the gun barrel to split the tree so if he came on the left I'd go left.....on the right, right. I caught a glimpse again and he was coming on the right I had the beed on him and was pondering on shooting him in full strut.....when the neighbor prrrr'd very softly, his head lurched forward and I squeezed the trigger. 10yds. I breathed a sigh of relief and the monkey left my back.
24lbs, 9.75" beard
