Kentucky Turkey Hunt

B

Bowfreak

New member
Aug 4, 2017
482
Tuesday morning was an early wake up. 4 am and on the road about 1.5 hours to my buddies farm. As I drive I am listening to a John Dudley podcast and thinking how 2016 has already become one of those years where turkeys make you think they are the most difficult animal on the planet to arrow. I had hunted the previous 3 days and heard tons of gobbling but was never setup even close to a gobbler. To be honest with you....it would have been hard to setup any farther away from them. On the third day I actually laid eyes on a single hen. I had already put quite a bit of butt time in so I was looking for a change of pace. By 6 am I make it to my spot which is actually the neighboring property to my friend\'s. I quickly unload and head to my location. I set up my blind in an area where I have seen plenty of gobblers strut in seasons past while viewing with my binos from a distance but I had never set foot on this ground to turkey hunt ever. I got nestled into a fenceline and had a cedar as a backdrop to my blind. I set my jake at 7 yards and waited for daylight. Soon I hear gobblers sounding off.

There was actually quite a few gobbling but just like every other morning, I am in the worst location compared to where they are gobbling. They are far off but I don\'t feel like I am out of the game because this area is real open and it is easy for a bird to see my decoy from a long distance. Turkeys being able to see a long way is both good and bad. The good is just that....they have a great chance of seeing your decoy setup and the bad is they will see you if you are wanting to move. Over many years of bowhunting them I have learned to resist the urge to go to them and just stay put. I have found that if you stay out of sight and don\'t step on the turkeys by showing yourself that it gives you the best opportunity to arrow a bird. This is vastly different than when I shotgunned for them. I hit the ground running, covered as much ground as it took to get one to play and then normally filled out in a couple of days. What used to be a couple of days turns into many times a blank or maybe 10 whole hunting days to tag a bird or 2 with my bow.
 
This morning was going just like every other morning where I had hunted turkeys this year. The black cloud seemed to have followed me again. I start thinking back to youth season when I had my 10 year old daughter out. She has been trying to shoot a gobbler with her bow for the past few years and we literally have had pretty much everything happen while we hunt OTHER than her actually firing an arrow. So far, the opening morning of youth season was the only real excitement I had witnessed. A gang of 3 gobblers tiptoed in silent at 10 am and were standing at our decoy. They were uneasy about the setup and eased off farther out into the field before my daughter Riley could get a shot. She had a shot at 22 yards but she elected to pass, as she should have. The rest of the morning was fun for me but Riley lost interest after an hour or so of them hanging out in front of us gobbling, strutting and courting hens. I had fun snapping pictures of them.









We finished out that day by tearing up my Polaris Ranger and then being blown away by ridiculous winds which pretty much killed the rest of the weekend.
 
So my Tuesday morning hunt was going slow. Pretty much like most of my turkey hunts with my bow. The only difference in the ones where I actually kill a bird and the ones where I don\'t is normally about 30 seconds of mayhem. As I set in my blind calling sparingly here and there to let gobblers know I was around I continued to take note of all the gobbling. There was one group of gobblers that were the closest but they were at least 600 yards as the crow flies. Throughout the morning, in between naps, texting to my buddies and some studying in the book of Romans I logged onto Bowsite and found a thread where a guy was asking about what to do with some turkeys he was trying to kill. The guy was losing his confidence and thinking he was doing something wrong. Knowing exactly how he felt, I posted this: \"Turkeys can be like shooting squirrels at times. They can be unkillable at times too. Hunt til noon or later and eventually it will happen. Fwiw....I have been getting my butt kicked by them for 4 straight days. I haven\'t even been close to a gobbler yet.\"

I thought as I typed the hunt til noon or later if I actually believed that for myself. I even texted one of my buddies who I have spent numerous hours with turkey hunting. We were talking about how our seasons were going and I told him that some of the worst days I had spent in the turkey wood turned around in a split second and ended up a kill. Since he works in a town that is on my way home we made plans for lunch.

At 11:30, I had given up. I pulled my ninja mask off and started to put my calls up when I heard a gobble. This time I could tell that the bird was nearly directly in front of me on another ridge. If I was not mistaken he was in an area that should be visible to me. I started quickly scanning the hillside and spotted what I thought to be a turkey. Since I had forgotten my binos I pulled out my rangefinder to get a closer look. I immediately confirmed it was a gobbler by the size, color and confirmation of a beard. I put my mask back on and texted my buddy that I was going to wait this out and would miss lunch.
 
I watched the birds mess around a little and then drop off into the valley between us. They were moving somewhat in my direction but with turkeys you never really know what they are going to do. It took them about 10 minutes to make it to the valley and I thought that within 10 minutes or so they would be at my decoys or they were not coming. It was only a few minutes before noon when I heard them running in from my left. I could not see them as I had my windows on my blind closed up as tight as possible but my instincts when I heard this rush of running through the grass was to immediately grab my bow and try to hook up my release. Before I could snap my release to the string I see a gobbler jump into my window landing feet first on my decoy. He immediately started wearing this poor Jake out. He had two companions and they were really engrossed in this decoy. I was moving around in a rush and rattling arrows and clicked my release onto the string. They came so fast that they caused me to rush. But experience should have told me that they werent going anywhere as they were literally zoned out taking turns on the Jake. I came to full draw and planned on shooting the boss who was at this time standing on my decoy giving him some \"love.\" Another bird was flogging the Jake and had the big Tom obscured. When my pin started to settle on the big Tom\'s beard, he jumped into the air and started an another attack. I quickly moved over to one bird who was to the left, in half strut at 4 yards. He was the one standing the most still so he was the lucky candidate. The pin hit the spot and the shot was off involuntarily. I quickly moved to watch him stagger off about 35 yards and disappear in the grass.

Here is what it looked like after I shot.



I posted the above cell phone pic as it shows the area the birds come from. They were on the upper side of the patch of trees in the upper middle portion of this picture. They were 400 yards line of sight.

Here is a better pic of the aftermath




And a pic from where I found my arrow.

 
As soon as the gobbler went down, \"Darrel and Darrel\" sped over to give him the business. I snapped this pic as they stood over my gobbler letting him know they were top dogs. They are both literally standing on my bird stomping a little on my downed bird, coupling it with a few pecks.



They were still pretty fired up and didn\'t want to leave. The continued to hang around and walk around my bird until they finally were done with him or done with my mug sticking out the blind window snapping pictures of them. I got a better pic of Darrel and Darrel as they walked off.

 
Once the gobblers retreated I got out of the blind and made my way over to my bird. I set my bow down and snapped a pic where he laid. This is how I found him.



I pulled out my tag, marked it and then actually logged onto KDFWR\'s website. I checked in the bird and now he was 100 % legal. After gathering up my gear and posing for a few hero pics, I cleaned him on the spot and brought the meat (I had a ziplock for my TP), beard, tail fan and spurs out and headed home.



I really enjoy hunting anything with a bow. I mean anything. But there is something special about turkeys. I think it is the fact that I am normally suffering from cabin fever typically from the winter or maybe it is the simple fact that they are just plain fun to hunt. They aren\'t whitetails, elk or even antelope. But they sure are fun and they can turn a capable bowhunter into a bumbling idiot or make a doofus look like a genius. This seems to be determined almost solely by the particular turkey you spar with on that given day. You literally never know how they will act. Hunting them is awesome but probably the most fun portion of the whole hunt for me and my family is the prize of fried turkey. It is literally the one meal my oldest daughter and I look forward to the most.

 
congrats!!!!!! this was our year for turkeys to make fools of us. but dang did my soon to be 9 year old boy have fun :D
that fried turkey looks delicious!
 
Thanks guys. It sure is fun to hunt them.

\"cnelk\" said:
Good job!
Can you only shoot one turkey/year in KY?
Click to expand...

You can shoot 2 in the spring BUT you can only shoot 1 per day. I am not \"allowed\" to kill another one until my daughter kills. Her rules not mine. LOL!
 
\"Bowfreak\" said:
Thanks guys. It sure is fun to hunt them.

\"cnelk\" said:
Good job!
Can you only shoot one turkey/year in KY?
Click to expand...

You can shoot 2 in the spring BUT you can only shoot 1 per day. I am not \"allowed\" to kill another one until my daughter kills. Her rules not mine. LOL!
Click to expand...

It was nice of her to allow you to kill that one!!!!
 
\"cohunter14\" said:
Hey Mark, how about a little intel on the Turkey poppers. Those look awesome!
Click to expand...
It\'s the only way to eat them as far as I am concerned. It is very simple.

1) Filet out the breasts.

2) Then cut the breast into strips or chunks. I like them to be about 1\" thick max. You can cut the strips as long as you like just don\'t get them too thick or they will take longer to fry.

3) Once you have your chunks or strips just prepare an egg wash with one or 2 eggs in a bowl. This is simply to help the flour mix stick to them better.

4) Heat oil in a fry daddy or pan. You are going to deep fry them like french fries or fish. 375 is probably a good estimate for temperature.

5) Pour a couple of inches of your favorite breading, Flour, or corn meal into a gallon ziplock bag. My absolute favorite is Kentucky Kernel Seasoned Flour.

6) Add a batch of strips (maybe 8-10 pcs) to your egg wash.

7) Pull out strips individually and shake off excess egg and drop in the bag.

8) once you have the bottom of the bag covered with strips, zip the bag shut and shake to coat.

9) Add strips, egg and flour as needed and repeat.

10) Drop into preheated grease and fry for 6 minutes or until your desired doneness.

11) Remove and strain on paper towels.

12) Dip in your favorite sauce and founder. Lol.


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This is the stuff here. Great for fish, morels and turkey. If I fry it this is my breading.
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