jmoose
PMA Member
My brother (cymoose42) and I headed up to northern Wisconsin this weekend for one last turkey hunt of the year. I've got a few buddies up there and have gone up to chase gobblers with them for the past 4 years. It's always a great time and if we manage to shoot a bird or two, it's just an added bonus!
Joel and I rolled into my buddy, Ryan's driveway fairly late Thursday night and immediately started putting together a plan for the morning. The plan was to hunt around his brother, Travis' house Friday morning and then grab the camper and head to our usual great hunting spot an hour away for the weekend. Friday morning we had a close encounter, but no shots.
We hitched up the camper and headed to the "honey hole". Travis and another buddy, Dan would be joining us at camp after work that night, so the 3 of us decide to hunt/scout for the weekend. We grabbed our gear and headed to a secluded hay field that has produced a few birds over the years.
After a couple hours with a couple hen sightings, but no gobbles and no gobblers in sight, we were bored and wanted to make a trip over to a nearby cheese factory since Joel had been talking about cheese curds since we got to Wisconsin the night before! We decided to leave the blind for a little run-and-gun action quickly before calling it quits. We only made it a couple hundred yards before Ryan spotted 3 birds in the next field, about 400 yards away. We glassed them and saw they were 3 jakes. All of us have the mindset of a turkey's a turkey, so nobody was being picky at this point. The birds were headed away from us, so we decided to get to a fence row about 100 yards away and then see if we could call them over. As we got closer to the thick fence row, we noticed the birds had turned and were now slowly angled toward us. We all 3 crawled into the thick brush and kind of had to scramble into position as the birds were suddenly headed straight for us and closing the distance pretty quickly! Apparently these birds read the script because they came in perfectly from right to left, in a single file line, 25 yards out. As soon as everyone had a clear shot, 1....2....3....BANG!! 3 dead birds were flopping in the field! Ryan turned and yelled "WHOOO HOOO!! Let's go get some cheese curds and drink some beer!!" We all laughed, high-fived, retrieved our trophies and did just that!
The next day, I got to witness a couple more birds go down as the rest of our group filled their tags as well. One hunt featured 10 jakes beating the crap out of my fan decoy we named "Hank". The total carnage for the weekend was 6 dead birds...all jakes, but none of us cared as we had a blast! We celebrated at the local watering hole Saturday night with the landowner where we were adding up all the birds we've taken on this property in the 4 years I've been coming up. We realized that we've taken 12 jakes. Thus, we decided to rename this trip "Jake Season". Thank you to my friends up north for another great trip to complete what has been an absolutely incredible turkey season!
Joel and I rolled into my buddy, Ryan's driveway fairly late Thursday night and immediately started putting together a plan for the morning. The plan was to hunt around his brother, Travis' house Friday morning and then grab the camper and head to our usual great hunting spot an hour away for the weekend. Friday morning we had a close encounter, but no shots.
We hitched up the camper and headed to the "honey hole". Travis and another buddy, Dan would be joining us at camp after work that night, so the 3 of us decide to hunt/scout for the weekend. We grabbed our gear and headed to a secluded hay field that has produced a few birds over the years.
After a couple hours with a couple hen sightings, but no gobbles and no gobblers in sight, we were bored and wanted to make a trip over to a nearby cheese factory since Joel had been talking about cheese curds since we got to Wisconsin the night before! We decided to leave the blind for a little run-and-gun action quickly before calling it quits. We only made it a couple hundred yards before Ryan spotted 3 birds in the next field, about 400 yards away. We glassed them and saw they were 3 jakes. All of us have the mindset of a turkey's a turkey, so nobody was being picky at this point. The birds were headed away from us, so we decided to get to a fence row about 100 yards away and then see if we could call them over. As we got closer to the thick fence row, we noticed the birds had turned and were now slowly angled toward us. We all 3 crawled into the thick brush and kind of had to scramble into position as the birds were suddenly headed straight for us and closing the distance pretty quickly! Apparently these birds read the script because they came in perfectly from right to left, in a single file line, 25 yards out. As soon as everyone had a clear shot, 1....2....3....BANG!! 3 dead birds were flopping in the field! Ryan turned and yelled "WHOOO HOOO!! Let's go get some cheese curds and drink some beer!!" We all laughed, high-fived, retrieved our trophies and did just that!
The next day, I got to witness a couple more birds go down as the rest of our group filled their tags as well. One hunt featured 10 jakes beating the crap out of my fan decoy we named "Hank". The total carnage for the weekend was 6 dead birds...all jakes, but none of us cared as we had a blast! We celebrated at the local watering hole Saturday night with the landowner where we were adding up all the birds we've taken on this property in the 4 years I've been coming up. We realized that we've taken 12 jakes. Thus, we decided to rename this trip "Jake Season". Thank you to my friends up north for another great trip to complete what has been an absolutely incredible turkey season!
