- Details
- Category: Turkey
- Published: Monday, 16 April 2007 11:19
- Written by Greg
Youth Turkey Hunt
It was late January here in Utah as we anxiously waited to hear if the 2007 season would be the year that we finally drew a coveted turkey tag. It was Friday, January 26th, when the disheartening email arrived telling us that once again we had not drawn a turkey tag. After being disappointed once again from the draw results for our Utah turkey tag, my son Dallas and I decided to give the Idaho turkey hunt a look.
Soon after navigating to the Idaho Fish and Game website, we discovered a few of very positive facts: 1. Non-residents can buy turkey tags over the counter. 2. Youth hunting opportunities are very affordable. 3. The Idaho Fish and Game website provides a very comprehensive hunt planner. It didn’t take us long to decide that we were going to hunt turkeys in Idaho this year!
Using the Idaho hunt planner, we quickly found a unit that had quite a bit of public land. Since there was still a fair amount of snow on the ground, we decided that a March turkey scouting trip was in order. We got a map of the unit we had chosen to scout and took drive to Idaho. We spent the weekend driving roads looking for areas/habitat that looked like it would hold turkeys. We mainly focused on canyons with creeks running through them that contained trees for roosting and areas where turkeys could forage for food. After a couple days of scouting (which I admit really wasn’t much) we decided on our hunting spot. We headed back home to Utah anxiously awaiting the arrival of April 7th, the opening day for the youth turkey hunt!
Finally the time had come! It was Friday, April 6th, the day before the opening of the youth turkey hunt and we were packed and ready to go. Dallas was out of school for the day and I was able to leave work a couple of hours early, hoping to beat rush hour traffic. Well, that didn’t happen. Seeing how it was Easter weekend, combined with the never ending road construction here in Utah, we were slow getting out of town. It really didn’t matter too much since we knew where we planned to hunt. All we had to do was make it to Idaho in time to buy a license, nothing else really mattered.
However, we did manage to make it to the area we planned to hunt on Friday with roughly 1 ½ hours before sunset. We glassed, walked and listened hoping to see or hear any sign of turkeys in the area. Even though we didn’t see or hear any turkeys, we were still optimistic that we’d find some birds over the next two days. Another plus was that the forecast called for nice warm weather, so hopefully Mother Nature would cooperate and we wouldn’t have to deal with bad weather. As it started to get dark, we headed for the closest convenience store where we stopped to purchase our licenses. The total cost for my non-resident license and tag may seem a little steep at $209.00, but when averaged with the price of Dallas’ license and tag at $18.00, the total cost compared with Utah’s fees didn’t seem so bad. Had we drawn a Utah turkey tag, the total cost for Dallas and I would have been $184.
We awoke Saturday morning to clear skies and a quickly setting full moon to the west. I was the first one dressed and outside. We had talked about getting up before daylight, but we never could decide on where to set up for a morning stand since we didn’t know where the turkeys were roosting. As it became light enough to see, my first sight was that of a hen running across an open area 200 yards away! I whispered to Dallas, who was still inside and not fully dressed, that I could see a turkey. No sooner than I spoke those words, I heard a turkey gobble no more than 150 yards away! Dallas’ first response to my claim of seeing a turkey was “no way”. Then I followed up with a “did you hear that turkey gobble”? He was dressed and by my side in a heart beat! We now were scrambling to get the decoys, our day pack and everything else together so that we could make a quick game plan and get after the birds, all the while hearing the gobbler calling in the distance. We hadn’t even finished gathering everything together when we again looked toward the area of the gobbling and there due South on the edge of the trees were two toms at full strut! Apparently the hen that I first spotted heard the gobble before me because she was heading to the exact location of these strutting gobblers. We now had everything (we’d later realize that we had forgotten our sandwiches) we needed and set out to ambush those turkeys.
The first obstacle in our path was a small clearing that extended from south to east and we’d have to cross it to the east in order to reach the cover of trees before we could attempt to head toward the turkeys. At this distance, with a gentle hillside sloping down into the valley that contained a moderately quick flowing creek, we thought we’d be safe from the turkey’s detection. We were wrong. We hadn’t taken more than two steps when all of the turkeys (2 toms and 4 hens) turned and started heading straight away from us. We watched them head south for another 100 yards until they reached the cover of the thick oak and maples, they vanished.
We turned and looked at each other, stunned, we’d been busted! At that point we weren’t quite sure what to do, but we quickly made the decision to go after them. We figured that once we crossed the creek below us, we would circle around to the east and try to drop back in on them. Once we reached the creek we put on our waders and forged ahead. The water was just below our knees at the deepest point and there was absolutely no way to cross the creek by boulder hopping, so the waders worked out quite nicely. After reaching the other side of the creek, we ditched our waders, no reason to carry them with us for the entire day. Cautiously we crept just inside of the brush trying not to be seen or heard. At this point, 30 yards due west of us, two gobblers had been strutting only minutes ago! We headed east for a couple hundred yards, then picked our way through the thick oak and maple covered hill, heading south until we got to the top of a small rise where the area opened up into a small clearing. Depending on how far the turkeys had traveled, it was possible that they could be down off the hill to the west a few hundred yards. This is where we’d try calling for the first time today.
After setting out our three decoys, we started calling. Our calls were made up primarily of yelps and cuts. Thirty to forty minutes passed, we hadn’t seen or heard anything. We figured the turkeys were still in the area (or at least we hoped so), but we decided to head a little further south up the mountain to look for a bigger opening where our decoys could be seen from a greater distance. We hadn’t gone more than 150 yards when we came upon a large clearing that spanned several hundred yards sloping up to the east and 100 yards down the hill to the west. We crept to the edge of the clearing and nestled against some scrub oak. Again we got out the decoys. I crawled on my hands and knees roughly 30 yards out into the clearing and strategically set them up again. Once I had settled back into the brush, I started calling with my glass call. We were facing in a westerly direction and had a perfect view of any turkey deciding to head up the hill toward the decoys or if by chance a turkey appeared from the brush across the clearing, Dallas could easily swing to the left for a shot. After five minutes or so of calling we heard our first gobble! Within a couple of minutes we spotted a big tom skylined on a ridge to the west. He was a good 300 yards away. As Dallas and I took turns watching the gobbler through our binoculars, several other hens made their way over the ridge, nine in all. Even from this distance the tom’s big red head was evident. This tom continued to play peek-a-boo on the skyline and gobbled on and off for the better part of an hour. He was perfectly content with his flock of nine hens and finally disappeared into the scrub. We sat silent for a while and just listened and glassed. At this point Dallas started to get a little drowsy. He leaned to his side and within five minutes he was fast asleep.
Since it had been almost an hour since we last called, I couldn’t resist the urge to try a few more calls. Of course my first few calls startled Dallas, but within a few minutes he totally ignored my calling and was asleep (more of a twilight sleep) again. After about ten minutes a turkey answered with a yelp! The sound was coming from the north, right where we had been an hour or so ago. I was totally excited! Dallas in his sleep induced haze didn’t display the same excitement that had overcome me. He continued to lay there even though he replied that he had heard the turkey. With the turkey closing in, I quit with the cutting calls and mixed it up with a few clucks and yelps. I got another answer and it even sounded closer! At that point Dallas was up with gun in hand!
As we stared intently in the direction of the answering turkey, making as little movement as possible, I carefully made a few soft clucks and purrs. After what seemed like an eternity of trying to keep our nerves in check (approx. 2 minutes), it was me who saw the gobbler pop-up his head 30 yards away! My heart was pounding…I whispered “there’s a gobbler, do you see him”? At the time I didn’t know why Dallas couldn’t see the bird. “No” Dallas answered. Even though I was only sitting a foot away from Dallas, I did have a little better view to the north. The tom was trying to locate us. He kept poking his head up above the brush line and then would dip down out of site. The turkey had now moved about one foot to the west when in perfect view, for me and me only, he displayed his perfectly fanned tail. I didn’t realize that Dallas still couldn’t get a bead on the turkey, without looking back at Dallas I told him “go ahead and shoot”! Instead of hearing the blast of the gun, I heard a frustrated whisper say “I can’t see him”. I slowly turned to see why Dallas was having trouble locating the tom. At eye level it was fairly difficult to see through the brush, but come on. That is when I realized his dilemma…the eye holes in his head net were totally getting in the way of his vision! As Dallas would take aim, his cheek would press against the gun stock and his head net would move just enough to block his vision. Within thirty seconds it was all over, the tom had ducked back into the brush. We waited for another minute hoping to see the tom pop his head up one last time, but it didn’t happen. I tried a few more clucks, nothing. In frustration Dallas pulled off his head net and questioned why we needed head nets in the first place and vowed to never wear his again. He was visibly disappointed…this would have been his first turkey, ever. Only a few minutes had passed since we had last seen the turkey and I tried to give him some positive words of encouragement. I pointed out the fact that we had just called in our first gobbler and it had been within 30 yards of us! Not to mention that we still had the rest of the day to hunt and that I believed the turkeys were still lurking around. I’m not sure how much effect those words had on Dallas, but he did put his head net back on.
Immediately I started back up with the clucks and purrs. It hadn’t been two minutes when we heard a turkey making some sort of peep/quick short whistling sound! Dallas had his gun up and was pointed right in the direction of the sound. Another thirty seconds and there it was…the big red head of that elusive gobbler!
This time it didn’t take Dallas more than a couple of seconds and he had the bird dead in his sights! The blast echoed across the hill side. Two previously unseen toms along with two hens took flight to the west. Dallas’ gobbler wasn’t so lucky. As a dad, I couldn’t have been more excited for my son! His first turkey. After a big congratulatory hug and several pictures, we gathered up our gear and headed off the mountain and arrived back at the truck by 11:15 am.
Dallas’ first gobbler weighed 21 lbs. and had a 9 ½ inch beard, with spurs just under 1 inch. The only problem facing me now is how to make room for a fully mounted gobbler…a nice problem to have!