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Archery Bird

sep0667

Land of the Whitetail
4-25-20. Went to a new place to try that I have not hunted before (see post “two blinds/hunters in same field”). 3am came early but I was excited to go. Stopped by my parents at 4 to pickup dad and we got to the farm about 5. What I had guessed from looking at satellite map and what I had told my dad was that it would be a quarter mile to half mile walk....oops. It ended up being 1.2 miles from the field entrance to get down near the timber, creek. Dads not the most mobile anymore so that far of a hike with each of us toting a blind, decoys, bow, and some warmer clothes for the cool morning took longer and was a bit more work than expected. Crossing s field Fitch with water got both our feet wet too..he wasn’t to happy. It was just starting to get light so I quick helped get his blind set up and decoys our then hustled over a couple hundred yards to get my self set up. A few minutes after set up a hen pitched down near me and went back in the timber a bit later. It was quiet with no gobbles the first hour of light and I was getting discouraged. An hour later I could hear s Tom gobbling to the east on the other side of some timber. I tried calling to him but never saw him. Had some deer blowing at us and two bald eagles sat in the trees for a bit. 830 my dad sent me a video of a Tom about 30 yards from his decoys, so I was glad he atleast saw something, it didn’t come in though. 0900 I was about to doze off when out of the corner to my eye a Tom appeared with his beard bobbing along as he walked. I was caught way of guard as he came from behind me from the wide open and was only 20 yards. He walked straight away towards the timber I was facing and didn’t come in, i tried to give a couple yelps , but no luck. I no sooner settled back down onto my chair when from the right another Tom came from behind the blind at 10 yards running at my decoys. My heart started beating, I dropped my slate and striker to the ground and reached over for my bow that was laying on the ground. By this point he was in the decoys 5 yards in front of me. I didn’t even have an arrow knocked yet. I’m shooting the magnus bullheads and use the quiver adaptors they have that cover up the big blades so they can fit in your quiver and somehow I was able to sort of drag the adapter on the ground to get it popped off and was able to get the arrow knocked. Really wish all that was on film because that would have been pretty entertaining to see. The bird has his tail fan to me so I was able to get drawn easily and held at full draw probably 20-30 seconds as the bird finally circled around and stood still for a second for me to get a shot at 5 yards. Now I know these magnus bullheads will take their head right off, but wow, I guess I didn’t really expect it. Then it was like a spicket coming out of
the neck for about 10 seconds. Total devastation and brutal, almost barbaric, the bird didn’t have chance and you couldn’t have a quicker kill. What an adrenaline rush this hunt was, loved it, i was so pumped. We waited for about another 2 hours hoping something would go by dad but no luck. Then we we had the long hike back out. This was my smallest turkey for sure, only 19.5-20 pounds on the scale, 8.25 inch beard, and no spurs at all. For spurs there was just smooth spot maybe the size area of half your pinky nail but it didn’t stick out at all for no measurement (is that normal, unusual?). I'm guessing he was a really young bird, but I still would of that there would have been some spurs??? Sorry for the long read, I’m pumped for next weekend for 4th season!
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