Stumbled Upon Turkeys

This year the boys and I bought general season turkey tags for the Utah hunt without having a good idea as to where we might end up hunting. It turned out that we hunted a few different locations. But what was weird was that every single one of our three hunts played out the same way. What does that mean exactly…let me explain.

 hen turkey  hen turkey

                             Saw a few hens                                                 Carson called one in close

Firstly, we all three ended up filling our tags. Secondly, none of us were successful calling in the turkeys that we shot. Lastly, we all stumbled upon the turkeys that we did shoot.

 mature gobbler tom turkey 

                        Daxton with his tom

Here’s how it went down for all three of our hunts. Try as we might, we could not seem to call a tom into any of our setups. Even though we occasionally heard toms gobbling, sometimes distantly and other times nearby, none ever showed themselves. It was only after we had given up and had called it a day when on our way out of the area, we’d stumble upon turkeys unexpectedly. And on all three of those individual occasions we each were able to quickly chamber a round and score on a tom; kind of a crazy way to end each hunt.

 mature gobbler tom turkey 

                     Carson with his Utah bird

There was one slight difference with my hunt where after I unexpectedly stumbled upon turkeys and shot a tom, two of his curious buddies hung around investigating for a couple of minutes just 30 yards away. That gave me plenty of time to grab my phone and get some great pictures and video. Had there been another tag holder along on this hunt, they certainly would have been able to capitalize on this fluky situation.

 i went hunting turkeys  curious rio grande male turkeys

            These guys were really checking out my bird                      They hung around gobbling for a while

As the saying goes, “it is bittersweet” now that the turkey hunt has ended for us. Don’t get me wrong, we all are grateful to have filled our tags and can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that we don’t have to go compete for a public land turkey, but it is a little depressing realizing that the next hunting opportunity is still another three months away.

 i went hunting rio grande turkeys 

  Completely surprised me, scrambled & got it done