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CWTR 2021 Turkey Season

CurtisWalker

Well-Known Member
Now that my turkey season is finally over I’ll put the effort in to recap it. Let me tell ya it was a rough one for me. My goal for this season was to be on 20 successful hunts after being on 13 in 2020 but unfortunately that didn’t go to well and it wasn’t due to a lack of effort. Starting with youth season I went with a good friend and his son on a farm that we’ve had success on before. Friday morning was great lots of gobbles and we were close and in the game. Unfortunately they flew down the other direction to start the morning and things were quiet. Ended up striking a gobble a little later with a purr and the tom came charging in to break the edge of the timber at 15 yards and turn around and disappear just as fast as he appeared. Later in the morning the flock worked their way back towards us and hung out but never did get close enough for a shot.
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I decided to hunt first season this year just so I could keep hunting with other people during the typically hot action packed 2nd-4th seasons and I was hunting Nebraska the 2nd season weekend. So the first day of first season me and a buddy from work headed down to the farm we shot our double on in 2020 and it was cold and windy. Didn’t hear a gobble all morning. Three hens eventually showed up but that was all around 1:30 I decided we’d go try another farm that I typically don’t have much luck on. We sit down to wait the afternoon out. Still no gobbling but we see a couple hens milling around. I catch a glimpse of movement behind a cedar tree about 70 yards away and I move my binos up to see what it was and sure enough it was a tom. I call softly and a hen comes around the tree towards us and I tell my buddy to be ready. The tom comes around and pops his head up just looking. I’m not sure if he saw something at this point but I knew something was wrong and just like that he turns around. We goes back to where I originally saw him and struts around. The hen moves off and I tell my buddy if he wants to try to reap him he can. Well that wasn’t a good idea the tom wanted nothing to do with it. I’m looking through my binos and notice something wrong with the bird. There’s an arrow hanging out of him. Which could be why he was a wee bit wary. That was the only action the rest of the day.
Thursday comes around and I decide why go to work when it’s the last day of first season so I drive down to a friends brand new farm that I’ve dreamed of hunting when I drove by it many times and would always see toms strutting so you knew I was excited to hear the news they bought it and I was allowed to turkey hunt. Well I get down there later than I wanted to but and they were gobbling as I’m shutting my car door still needing to get dressed as it was a cold frosty morning. I hop the gate and trot my way towards the gobbles and man when I got to the top of the hill there was too many options. I decided to go with my gut feeling and try to get to a cove in the alfalfa field and I go passed a few toms while doing this but I had a good feeling looking at the aerial map of the farm. Remember I’ve never even stepped foot on this farm before this day. Well I get close to where I want to be and there’s two toms hammering close and at this point it’s bright enough where I knew I could be busted trying to be too aggressive so I pick the only tree close enough that I wouldn’t blow the birds out of the area. And I belly crawl my decoys out kind of to my left when I got to set up. The tree I was left with was on the east side of the field finger and the toms were straight down the finger to my right. I have a big cedar tree on my right side so I can’t see that way at all. Luck of the draw I guess. Once I got sat up and ready the first time the gobbled I cut and helped right back. They fired off again. Soon after I could hear the wing beats as they fluttered from their roosts. Bam!! They light up again and I yelp right back to them.. Then I can hear the drumming.. then the spitting. I catch glimpses of two toms strutting their way toward me through the cedar tree. They couldn’t of been more than 30 yards away and coming. But I can’t shoot through the tree so I am holding tight and the spitting and drumming is getting louder and louder. The come around the cedar tree at 3 yards. Smack dab in front of me. Walking right to left. They see my decoys and continue towards them. I’m swinging with them as they strut past me not getting any further from me but maintain that nice three yards. At this point I’m wondering how the heck have they not busted me. My hearts racing and they are getting to that area where you can’t turn left anymore while you are sitting so I settle in, so I thought, and squeezed the trigger just to watch them run out into the field and I try to shoot again. What can I say turkey fever got me for the first time, I didn’t have my head down and I missed my first turkey with the gun. I ended up hunting for the remainder of the day getting close a couple times but never had another shot opportunity.

The first day of second season I took my buddy out for the morning as I was leaving for Nebraska about midday. So we go to the farm I hunted the first day of first season. We hear a gobble and get set up in a “for sure” area. The tom answers the call and we watch him fly down across the clover food plot and into the bean field to vanish forever. The only thing we could think of was it was super dewy so maybe he didn’t want to be in the tall clover. So we try another farm with no luck and I end up dropping him of and I head to Nebraska.

Good ole Nebraska, if you haven’t heard of a Walker’s Nebraska turkey hunt then you are missing out. Blizzards, impassable roads, getting stuck in the middle of nowhere, loosing the muffler. It’s never a smooth trip. So we get to the place I’ve had some good luck in the past to scout. So we are wrapping around the lake and leave the pavement just to find mud, no big deal right?!! Wrong, we can’t make it down 90% of the roads, I can’t get to the areas I know where turkeys are. So we spend the remainder of the day trying to find birds. We find a few on private but none on public. We meet up with a few other friends later in the evening and go and get some grub and discuss the morning plans. The next morning I tell the guy just to drop me off at the corner of the road we can’t make it down and I’ll walk in from there. I had a 1.25 mile hike just to get to the public land. But man what a relief it was to hear birds gobble when I got there and I knew right where they were from previous years. Unfortunately that was another mile hike so I’m trucking along get to where I can see the roost tree. I watch the flock pitch down and start doing their thing toms gobbling like crazy. They stay on private but I knew it was a matter of time before they made their way to the public so I just stick with them moving slowly as they do and I eventually get to an area where they are on the fence line. I sit in a brush pile and call softly just trying to get a gobble to confirm where they are well all of a sudden a tom comes running towards me so I hold the fan up and sounded like a frenzy broke out toms were gobbling everywhere. Well the Tom runs all the way to 20 yards and hangs up on the fence and decides it was no big deal and leaves. So I crawl towards the birds behind the fan hoping it’ll be enough to coax one through the fence. They have other plans and make their way away from me. So back to the cat and mouse game it is. I follow the birds for a couple miles total before finally giving up on them as they found an area on private they seemed content. So now it’s mid afternoon rain is moving in I talk to the other guys and they are going to drive around some more as they didn’t get on birds so I decide to slowly make my way back to where I was dropped off making a few set ups on my way in hopes of catching a traveling bird. With no luck doing that I’m cresting the final hill on the public to see a strutter and hens in a hay field. So I get down quickly and wait for them as they are heading straight for me after waiting 30 minutes. I wonder where they are and give a look and they hadn’t moved 10 yards so I decide why not pull the fan out and crawl them. So I crawl through the CRP and there’s a seed drill in the hayfield between us so I position myself to crawl behind the drill. Well as soon as the hens saw that fan they came running. You’d of thought they were pissed off toms. All the way in to ten yards. Ends up the strutter was a Jake but there was a longbeard with him and they were headed my way too. That is until the Jake chased the tom away from me. The tom starts making his way back as the Jake turned his attention towards me. The hens now 5 yards, I’m wondering how long it’s going to take before they bust me the tom makes it to 15yards I drop the fan, shoulder the gun, and boom.....boom......turkey wings flapping.... me pulling my binos up to watch the tom as he flies away. Are you kidding me?!?!? Second bird missed in a row. What is going on!! Why is my gun not cycling the third round?!?
Didn’t get a shot opportunity the rest of the trip but I was on a successful hunt with one of the guys when he shot a Jake during the trip...I get home try going through my gun. Put it back together and everything works as it should. Consulted a buddy on the cycling issue he told me to make sure my barrel is seated correctly boom fixed. Not going to say that’s why I missed because after reflecting I can guarantee I didn’t get my head down.







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I get back to Iowa and a close friend’s dad had had a heart attack. I told my friend I’d take him out the last afternoon of second season to clear his head. Back to the same farm where the tom gave me and the other guy the slip the Friday before. We’re walking in and he spots some turkeys before they see us so we sneak around and I hold the fan up and it’s on like donkey Kong. Bird’s head turns beat red and he’s running at us. He goes into a dip in the field so I back up hoping to pull him across in front of my friend. Waiting.... no birds. I step up and look and they had changed their minds and were looping around the horseshoe of the field. So I said let’s just cut through the ditch and cut them off. So we do and set up the decoy watching for them. Once again we are running out of daylight and they aren’t appearing so we leave the decoy and start crawling towards where they should be. We no more than got 75 yards from the decoy just to hear the sound of plastic getting hit by winds. We look behind us and there’s three toms beating the decoy up. . What a season right.

Took my buddy’s son out again during third season had a tom show up about 50 yards from the blind and strut for what seemed like forever. He never did commit and eventually disappeared.
We ended up trying to get on other birds with no luck that morning.
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Fourth season my favorite season. Me and the friend I took for the half day hunt during second season decided to go out and hunt the first Friday of fourth season I believe it was. Went to the farm I never have luck on because the owner was getting pictures of turkeys every morning around 7:00 so we figured it couldn’t hurt to try. Weird thing about hunting this farm is it’s a hilltop and it’s basically all crp so there’s no good trees to sit against and it was burnt this spring. So we decided to lay on our stomachs just on the edge of the fire break. We are waiting and hearing plenty of gobbles but nothing close that gets you excited. All of a sudden I see a turkey pitch out of a tree probably 200 yards away and it turns and flies all the way into the decoys. Turns out it was a hen. But still one of the coolest things I’ve seen. Then the roost broke loose hen after hen piles out of the trees and into the burnt CRP field. My buddy says “I think I hear a tom drumming behind us” and I keep watching out front as the turkeys are higher than us and we can’t exactly see over the hill. All of a sudden I see fan come into view and I tell him to get ready. I told him he better shoot first in case it’s the only bird we get on that day. The tom struts towards us and my buddy still can’t see him with the topography. The tom finally makes and appearance for him. About the same time the tom must have seen the Jake decoy because here he came. Strutting all the way in. He starts posturing up on the decoy and I’m wondering if my buddy is ever going to shoot him. The bird starts to circle around the decoy again and boom!! I watch the head have whip lash and the turkey fall.
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I knew the landowner was going to come spray around 10-11 so we hunted til about 9:30 before picking up and walking the mile back to the car. Met the landowner about halfway out and thanked him again for allowing us to hunt. I told Skip since we were in the area I’d come say hi. I show up and he’s full sweat, covered in who knows what, doing the Skip spring mad dash to get everything done.
He sent us on our way before he put me to work. So we went to one of my all time favorite farms to turkey hunt. We clean my buddy’s bird and get in on the ice as it’s getting warm out at this point. Walk in the the first field and call. Nothing responds. Sit for a little bit because usually turkeys just show up in that field. I get impatient and say let’s just run and gun. Walk 100 yards to the south and call again and immediately have two responses. I know this farm like the back of my hand and know we can get to another clover plot that will give us a good vantage. So we hustle to it. In the process we lost the stake to the Jake decoy. So I just go with a single hen. I go and try putting the decoy out and the ground is rock hard. Chase says get down so I get down quickly pressing the decoy stake as hard as I can. Finally get it in and I crawl to where my buddy is. He said there was a hen 20 yards from me in the edge of the timber. Here’s the bad thing there’s no trees to sit against due to where the hen is. So we slide in behind a cedar tree and wait. I tell him I need to get the chair built into my vest under me. Get that done so I have something I can lean back against a little bit. I call and a different tom gobbles to our 3o’clock. Then the original toms gobble to our 11 o’clock. And another tom gobbles to the 12’o clock. The cedar tree is giving me cover from about 12 o’clock to 4 o’clock other than that I’m in the wide open. I stop calling and the tim at 3 is just going nuts but not getting any closer. Then we here something running in the timber and a couple seconds later a hen pops out into the plot at 12 o’clock so we are watching her then I catch movement at 9 o’clock. Tom! Wait there’s another, and another, and a Jake. The Jake works his way around and to the decoy quickly while the three toms take their time strutting in. Here I am in the wide open to them. I’m keeping the bead on one’s head the whole time just in case the get spooky. 30 yards, I can’t see, something got in my contact. I’m blinking like crazy trying to get it out and to clear up enough to see. I finally get it cleared and the toms are behind a cedar branch 20 yards. I’m going back and forth on what bird I want to shoot. And my buddy says be careful of the Jake about the same time he says that I see the Jake coming around the cedar tree at 5 yards. I settle on the main strutter and and squeeze the trigger as soon as he lifted his head a little bit and got my first tom of the season.
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It reminded me why I love fourth season so much. I should have bought two fourth season tags
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The following weekend I was planning on taking my wife hunting for her first ever time. But unfortunately I got super sick and she wouldn’t allow me to take her. The last Friday of the season I decided to take my buddy’s wife out to try to get her first turkey. Unfortunately my wife had to work so it was just Connie, Chase, and I. We walk in to the same farm I had been out done by turkeys all year and I set the blind up on my favorite hill and we wait. Chase is getting anxious because there isn’t any birds gobbling but I told him to relax because they usually gobble late if they are roosted where I think they are. And like clock work they gobble about 20 min after shooting time. I call a few times and then shut up. Not long after I hear Chase say there’s on. The rest can be watched here:
https://youtu.be/FWUXlL7ygXU
It was a stud tom too. Bigger spurs than her husband has ever killed so she got to rub that in

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The next day my wife was up to bat. We went back to the farm I killed my tom on and sat up in a blind. It was pretty slow then two toms a Jake and a hen showed up and they strutted at about 50 yards for about 1.5 hours and never got closer before eventually working off. Nothing else for the remainder of the hunt.
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Then the last day we went back to the CRP farm and didn’t hear a gobble sat for awhile but she didn’t feel good so after a quick bathroom stop we decided to try the farm where Connie shot her turkey that Friday we walk in and call with no luck and I could tell she really wasn’t feeling good and her ankles were getting rubbed by her oversized boots (I have a good Christmas gift now) so we start making our way back to the car just to see two toms strutting a half mile away and I ask her if she wants to go after them. She said she didn’t want to waste her first tag so off we went we ran in to another tom about halfway to the others but he noticed us at the same time and worked off so we continued marching. At this point rain started coming down and we get to about 50 yards of the toms. They want nothing to do with the calls. We later find out they had three hens with them so. So we position ourselves using the topography between the toms and hens and I hold the fan up and here comes two toms and turns out there was a third one but he must not of been part of the group because he held back. The two toms come charging in to maybe 4 steps and they are in tall grass. My wife is tiny, 5’7” 115lbs. She has my 12 ga with a 28” barrel she’s trying her best to get on them. But they keep disappearing in the grass for her. I tell her it’s okay if she can’t get a shot as they have a long ways to go before they get out of range on the other hand here I am holding the fan listening to two toms fight purr right in front of me wondering if I’m about to get beat up. They eventually move off and we make another move on them and get to about 30 yards and they are just preening. Unfortunately now there’s hens with them so I am talking her through letting the hens clear and she’s trying to stay steady on the tom but he’s working his way away from us by the time the hens clear he’s probably close to 50 yards. I didn’t really want her to shoot that far even though I know my gun has done it before. But she asked me if she could try it. So I gave her the okay. And she squeezed off her first shot ever hunting. Unfortunately she missed. So she was beating herself up and I look up to see a coyote coming across the field so a lip squeak and it starts running right towards us. I ask her if she wants to try to shoot it but she says no. So I take the gun and sit up and shoot it at 10 yards. It was was the first time she has ever watched me shoot an animal. She is excited for next year already. My favorite part was watching her get the shakes when the two toms strutted at 50 yards the day before.


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