- Details
- Category: Turkey
- Published: Friday, 12 June 2009 19:48
- Written by Greg
Back in Camp with a Turkey
This spring was an interesting turkey hunt. It was the first time my wife had ever gone turkey hunting. In fact, it was the first time she had ever been hunting...period.
We were back in camp with a turkey…not because we shot one…here's what happened.
We only had one day to hunt, but I was determined to get my wife out in the field. The general turkey hunt started on a Monday, so we packed up and headed to southern Utah late Saturday afternoon. We arrived at our destination just before dark, setup camp and went to bed.
Early Sunday morning, I got up and went scouting. Umm, my wife stayed at camp. I did some calling and had a hen respond, but she never came in to my call. About 100 yards after leaving that setup, I bumped into a couple of hens that I presume to be the one(s) that I previously heard. Those two turkeys were the only birds I saw all day. That evening as we lay down to sleep it began to rain lightly. We (my wife) decided that if it was raining in the morning we'd sleep in and not brave the weather. Did I mention that my wife is a fair weather fan???
Morning came and it was raining (sprinkling if you ask me). We slept in. After sleeping in for 3 hours we got up around 8:30 a.m. We donned our camo, grabbed the decoys and gun and headed out. We hunted for total of ONE hour and SURPRISINGLY never saw or heard a thing. Back to camp we went; that was about enough hunting for my wife. Did I mention that my wife is not much of a hunter???
We puttered around camp until lunch time and at 1:00 p.m. my wife was ready for a nap. She had been asleep for almost an hour when I decided that we might as well pack up and head for home at 2:00 p.m. (we had to be back home Monday night). The time on my phone read 1:55 p.m. With 5 minutes to go before nap time ended, I decided to make a 100 yard sweep down around and back to camp. We were camped near some big tall cottonwood trees and I had visions of seeing a turkey near camp since we arrived. What the heck, I ventured out on my 5 minute walk. 4 minutes and 50 seconds (20 yards from our camp) into my foray, I rounded a big clump of brush...rustle rustle rustle...there was a turkey! A big tom no less!
He popped right out from the brush and hopped onto a fallen log 10 ft. away. Tom turkey stood bobbing his head, looking in all directions. I was absolutely dumb founded. The standoff must have lasted a full minute; the silence was broken by my calling out to my wife. Wife...wife...wife...I was now shouting! No response from camp. I gave a couple of sharp whistles...Mr. turkey was getting nervous. He started heading around the brush pile, so I started around the brush in the opposite direction. Not 3 steps into my pursuit and ol' Tom turkey turned and headed directly toward camp!
I reversed my direction and was in hot pursuit; albeit very slowly. I continued to shout like a hiker attempting to scare off a bear. The turkey trotted toward camp and passed within a couple of feet from our motorhome. My wife was now staring out the window with a dazed look on her face. “Grab the gun, grab the gun”, I shouted. I dashed into the motorhome and said "did you see it? Get the gun". We flew out the door, rounded the front of the motorhome and just stared into the patchy tree and brush filled area ahead of us. Nothing. In fact, my wife never saw the turkey at all. I'm not sure she even believed there had been a turkey in camp. I'm sure she was thinking that his was just another ploy to get her to go out hunting one last time.
Whether or not she actually believed me, she did agree to camo up and head back out. We spent another hour and 30 minutes calling and hunting, but never saw or heard anything but a few tweety birds.
By 5 o'clock we were headed down the highway on our way back home. We hadn't managed to bag a turkey, but we created a memory that will last forever!