- Details
- Category: Turkey
- Published: Saturday, 25 April 2015 13:24
- Written by Anon
Advantage - Approach Unannounced
My spring turkey hunt started at the base of a large mountain range in Southern Utah, in the bottoms below the foothills. I set up a couple of ground blinds near a wooded creek in hopes of calling a tom within shotgun range. While I saw turkeys, I never was able to get them to commit to my decoys. In fact, just after daybreak every turkey I saw headed straight for the foothills to go feed.
About an hour and a half after first light, I watched what I thought were the only eight turkeys left in the area, walk their way right out of the bottoms and up into the foothills nearby. That’s when I decided it was time to move to a new hunting location. After gathering up my first ground blind I hopped into my truck and drove another 75 yards up to where my other ground blind stood. Empty handed, of course, I began crossing the creek in my hip waders. At the halfway point I looked up to unexpectedly see five turkeys just across the other side of the creek, at least one was a jake. I ducked down and crept back across the creek to my truck to grab my gun. Too late, the flock spooked and flew up into the rock cliffs at the base of the foothills.
After loading up the last of my gear, I headed several miles down the road until I found a good place to unload my 4 wheeler. From this location several dirt roads split off the main road, one of which looped back into the foothills where I’d last seen the turkeys feeding. The next hour was spent looking for any sign of turkeys. Finally I came upon fresh turkey tracks in the middle of a two-track trail, so I continued following the tracks higher and higher until I was halfway up the mountain, miles from where I began. Now that I had travelled this far, I decided to continue up the mountain to the snow line.
After blazing my way through several snow covered patches of road, I came to a point where a large deep snow drift seemed impassable. At this point there weren’t any vehicle tracks from previous attempts to cross this section of road. Great news, I was venturing into uncharted territory where nobody else had likely hunted. However, it had been miles since I’d last seen a turkey track in the road and there didn’t appear to be any tracks here either. I hopped off my 4 wheeler and tested the snow. It was still completely hard and crusted, so I jumped back on, raced across the snow field, up and around the blind corner ahead. Once around the corner I came upon a huge downed pine tree which completely blocked further ATV access, but at least I had ventured hundreds more feet into virgin territory.
Once off my 4 wheeler, I did what I had periodically done all morning, let out some yelps from my box call. But unlike every other earlier situation, the silence was broken by several thunderous gobbles a short distance away. Confounded by the sudden response, I took a couple of deep breaths, gathered the rest of my calls, my gun, and started toward the gobbles. Just thirty feet from my ATV I got my first glimpse at three long beards as they inched through the forest ahead. I called, they gobbled! This scenario played out at a couple of times until I noticed the toms were not coming toward my calls. So closer I crept, slowly. Fully anticipating the gobblers to be nearby, I softly called again but this time their response was distant. I pursued the turkeys for two hours, sometimes catching a quick glimpse through the trees and other times my only reward was distant gobble. Ultimately I gave up, exhausted, and headed back to my ATV.
Twenty minutes had passed, surprise, surprise, an unsolicited gobble rang out in the distance. And my current position was only 500 feet from my 4 wheeler. Apparently another tom had wandered into the area that I had left hours ago because this gobbler was not one of the toms I had pushed way up the canyon. Smarter now from my earlier encounters, my advantage would be to approach unannounced. Cautiously I moved toward my ATV, stopping several times to glass the forest ahead. Nearing my 4 wheeler, I noticed movement through my binoculars. Just up the hill from my King Quad I spotted the big red head of a tom! I positioned myself right a few feet and continued glassing. More movement, two big red heads appeared in view, not one but two long beards ahead! The trick would be to close the gap another 50 yards, undetected.
As I began to plan my ambush route, I again noticed significant movement. Using my binoculars I zeroed in on the hillside and spotted the two toms fighting. Perfect, just the distraction I needed. As the toms tussled, I moved closer and closer. Just before I reached shotgun range, the toms strayed over a rise and dipped out of sight. Hurriedly I covered 20 more yards and eased up my binos. There on the other side of a fallen log was the top inch of a red turkey head. Slowly I let down my binoculars and silently lifted my 12 gauge into position and waited. After what felt like minutes, the big red gobbler’s head rose several more inches, I lowered the boom!
