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Blog Entries from the WeHuntSC.com blogging crew


I Think I Caught Turkey Fever
    WeHuntSC.com - Adam Smith's First Gobbler (that he called in)
  Yes, it's blurry but you'll see it better on the video

After the showing we had yesterday, we all felt like we couldn?t do any worse if we went back out again today.  Though, after we hunted yesterday, Adam went and bought a new slate and a diaphragm call.  He was pumped up about practicing calling birds in and I think he even went hunting yesterday afternoon just to see if he could get one to talk back to him.  Adam is pretty driven and when he gets something in his mind to do, then he usually works at it until he gets it done.  I have no doubt that he?ll be a good turkey caller before too long and his efforts today yielded some pretty impressive results. Keep in mind that this was his first time turkey calling without a deer antler. 

We all met early again over at my place and headed out.  We didn?t drop the striker for the slate on the way in this time so already it was a success in comparison to yesterday?s hunt.  This morning we didn?t hear many turkeys gobbling from the trees in the dark like we did yesterday.  We got set up and had our two decoys out in front of us.  We sat and waited and could hear one turkey gobbling way off in the distance to our left.  He was very talkative, but remained at a distance and didn?t seem to get any closer as a response to Adam?s calling. 

In time, the sun had risen and was up really high and we still hadn?t seen a turkey.  We were a little frustrated at the lack of action, especially since we actually brought the slate striker today!  We talked a little in between ourselves and even thought about leaving.  Then Adam looked at us and said ?Hey, patience kills turkeys? (referencing to a quote that Mr. Puette told me only a week earlier).   I said, yep ? you?re right and we decided to stay in another hour just to see what would happen. 

We sat and sat and the temperature started to warm up some.  Due to their positioning, Will and Adam couldn?t see as well as I could.  I had a better perspective so I was constantly scanning the tree line looking for any movement.  After a while, I saw something directly across the field from us that looked like the shape of a turkey, but it was so far away that I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me much like they do when deer hunting.  I ?whisper-yelled? at the guys and said ?Throw me the binoculars? and they reached to get the binoculars, but before they could grab them I saw the turkey move.  I repeated ?there he is, there he is, can you see him?? and they immediately perked up.  I could clearly see the turkey, but it took a few minutes before he came into Adam and Will?s view.  Adam was randomly hitting the slate call and I told him to talk to the bird.  He started slowly ?purring? at the bird and instantly the turkey puffed his feathers up.  I whisper-yelled again ?Can you see him? and by this time they had him clearly in their line of sight.  We were all excited and the bird was headed our way.

Adam kept lightly striking the slate call ever so often as the gobbler slowly strutted his stuff across the field.  It was awesome.  He would walk for a bit, then puff his feathers up and walk some, then like deflate and then puff up again.  It was like a cycle that he went through and he did this 3 ? 4 times within the minutes that he strutted across the field.  There was no doubt that this turkey was hearing what Adam was doing and responding to it.  Even once the turkey stopped and gobbled real loudly in response (and you can hear it on the video if you turn the volume up).  We were all glued to our seats as this big boy was strutting in the field like he owned it.  The bird was coming closer and closer. 

As the turkey got closer I noticed that I started getting some shakes going on ? the same kind of rush you get when a big buck walks out in front of you.  My heart began to beat more as the turkey responded and kept drawing in closer to us.  It was neat to watch this bird come out from about 200 yards away and come directly towards us.  I really thought that we were going to get some great footage of a kill shot. 

Finally, the turkey got close enough to us and he stopped and perked his head up.  He saw our decoys and when he saw the decoys his whole demeanor changed.  The turkey came up from the other side of a small hill.  It wasn?t until he topped the crest of the hill that he could see the decoys.  As soon as he saw the decoys he started walking differently.  He seemed to be more in a hurry and then he went hard to the left and was seemingly pacing back and forth for a minute or so.  He did this twice and then made a b-line for the trees.  As rookie hunters we really have no clue why the turkey did this, but our current theory is that when this turkey saw the decoys he felt that the male decoy was larger than him and got intimidated and immediately fled the scene.  The turkey we were calling had a beard, but it wasn?t a huge one.  This is what makes us believe this notion.

After the turkey went back into the woods we were all just sitting there deconstructing what had just taken place before us.  We were all pumped and excited and we all felt that same rush.  It was a pretty intense few minutes for some novice turkey hunters.  Again, we sat for a little while and then two more birds came from the corner.  I spotted them and then we went back into stealth mode in the woods.  Though, these two birds were just feeding and were hens.  They came out in the field and worked their way past us.  This was fine with us and we tried to give them time to leave, but we were ready to go.  We got up and I interviewed Adam and during the interview Will saw the hens working back down.  We paused the video to try to get closer and call them in, but had no luck. 

All in all I think it was a much better hunt than yesterdays.  To see the turkey blow his feathers up like that and come across the crest of that hill was a neat scene for me and one I won?t forget.  I hope to see that again in my life!  We headed back to the truck and yet again to Bojangles.  I don?t know if it?s a good thing to tell the wife-to-be, but I think I may have caught turkey fever! 

You'll best see this video if you blow it up to full screen and watch in 720p, but give it time to load

Regards,

Clint
 


The Wrong Way to Turkey Hunt
   WeHuntSC.com - Will and Adam leaning on a tree looking at the turkey
  Adam and Will leaning on the big oak looking at the turkey off in the distance

This past week Adam and Will were fired up about turkey hunting.  They had been going turkey hunting with some soon-to-be mentioned hunters earlier in the week and I believe the boys are starting to get ?turkey fever? if there is such a thing.  They had been sitting with some experienced hunters and watched them call in some birds and I believe it got to them.  Their enthusiasm mixed with my recent luck of being in on a successful hunt made a combination for three rookies wanting to go turkey hunting.  We decided that we?d go about mid-week.

As the end of the week approached, Adam and Will had been making turkey calling, decoy setting up, and game-planning plans for our hunt.  On the Friday night before hand I had to go to a shower (which was a very enjoyable one for me).  I got a bunch of grilling stuff!  While I was at the shower, Adam and Will were at home practicing their calls, watching instructional videos, reading up on the web on exactly how to call correctly and the best positioning of decoys.  Will had also gone and watched where the turkeys went to roost the night before.  By the time the shower was over I was exhausted and ready for bed.  We agreed to meet at my place early the following morning in order to get set up before daylight.  Will was to be the hunter, Adam was to be the caller, and I was going to document the whole thing.

Will arrived to my house first and he showed me the decoys he bought + he was striking the slate call showing me how it sounded.  Will said that Adam had practiced with the diaphragm and was bringing it with him.  As we waited in the drive way on Adam, we loaded some stuff up.  Adam arrived shortly thereafter and we all piled into the truck.  As we sat in the truck, Adam told us that he?d forgotten the diaphragm call at his house as he rushed to leave his house.  He also told us that he stayed up until 1am researching and getting ready to be the caller for the hunt.  We could tell he was excited?like I say, these boys have caught turkey fever.  Even though Adam forgot the diaphragm, we thought we?d be ok because we still had the slate call and figured that would be good enough.

We got to the field really early and got all our stuff out of the truck.  We headed down to the field and I led the way because I had the bright light on my head.  As we walked in the dark, we heard a gobble in the trees really loudly which meant they were really close.  We were excited that they were already up and gobbling so early.  We had to walk about 350 yards to get to our location.  About 3/4?s the way in Adam noticed a ?shed? antler on the ground.  We stopped and looked at it for a moment.  It was a pretty nice shed?about an 8 point.  After pausing for a moment, we continued to our location.   We set up in a section of woods that is really like an island of woods out in the middle of a field.  Will put the decoys out and then all of a sudden Adam says ?Where is the slate stick?? and we all stopped and thought for a moment and in one instant a sense of worry took us over.  Will told Adam that he?d handed it to him back at the truck.  Adam remembered and somehow, in between the truck and the island of woods, Adam had dropped/lost the slate striker.  The immediate panic mode set in and we searched the ground for the striker.  The growth in the field was wet from the early morning dew and the more we walked the wetter our pants legs and boots got.  It was not a good situation.  We literally had turkeys gobbling at us from the not-too-distant trees as the sun was just starting to come up? and we were looking all around for the striker.  Adam thought he may have dropped the striker at the shed rack where we paused for a moment, so we turned around and went back and couldn?t find it there either.  We were running out of time.  We needed to get situated.  We were posed with the situation of hearing turkeys gobble at us, the sun coming up, decoys on hand, but no way of making any sound to get any turkey?s attention.  What would you do in this situation?  Well, what we did was grab the shed rack and used it as the slate striker.  It was not the best scenario in the world, but it was our only hope.  I mean hey, you have to get creative in scenarios like this!

We made our way back to the edge of the woods and sat down.  Believe it or not, the turkeys actually responded to the antler-against-the-slate combination a few times throughout the morning.  In the video below (if you turn the volume up real loud) you will hear one response that a turkey made to the antler/slate call.  I told the boys that Bruce Puette said you didn?t have to be a great caller to get a turkey, but somehow I thought we were pushing the limits with our shed antler stunt we were currently pulling.  We knew the odds were against us, but we remained hopeful as we continued to get random responses from gobblers across the way.

We had one hen fly in the field really early.  She flew down into the very middle of the field and slowly but surely she worked her way towards us. She remained solo the whole time.  Eventually she went on past us, but it was fine with us as, by this time, the antler call didn?t seem to be working like we wanted.  Though, we could still hear turkeys gobbling off in the distance in the trees across from us.  We decided to move closer to the other side and set up at the big oak in the middle of the field.  Since we were going to move we wanted to look for the slate striker for a second.  We looked for a few minutes and couldn?t find anything, so we pushed on ahead to the big oak tree in the middle of the field.   We sat there for a while, and nothing seemed to happen.  We ended up moving one more time and we heard the turkey gobbling a lot, but in the end nothing happened.

Since I like to draw positives from any situation, I?m chalking this hunt up to a lesson learned?and that lesson is: Be sure your slate call striker/diaphragm/any necessary hunting gear is secured in a bag before you leave to go hunting!  Initially Adam was upset because he dropped the striker, but in the end he was a good sport about it and even gave an interview about what happened that you?ll see at the end of the below video.
 

I post this blog because we aren?t professionals and don?t claim to be, but we sure do like to hunt!  Instead of not mentioning it or being ?ultra-cool?, I like to keep it real and therefore I posted the blog to let you know how our hunt went.  We?re not above messing up and it will probably happen again.  I?m sure you may have ended up on a frustrating hunt or two in your day and, well, today was one of those days for us.  I don?t guess our chances at getting a turkey were too high this morning, but sometimes in life you have to be able to look at a situation, smile, and not take yourself too seriously.  Sure the boys practiced calling all night and sure we woke up early only to scratch a slate with a piece of an antler, but I mean look at the bright side?at least we were able to wake up and to go out and hunt somewhere.  That?s a blessing in itself!  I try to learn my lessons and be able to laugh about it.  So feel free to give us a hard time when you see us, there probably will be more material like this to come and we?ll keep on learning our lessons!  Every once in a while a not-so-perfect hunt happens and today was that day for us, but we still went to Bojangles afterwards!

Regards,

Clint

 


The Day I Learned How to Turkey Hunt
   WeHuntSC.com - Bruce Puette and the turkey he harvested on my first turkey hunt ever
  Mr. Pruette and a picture of his bird from our hunt

With turkey season opening up this past week I had been looking to go turkey hunting with someone because I?d never been before.  I?ve got a friend who?s big into turkey hunting in York, some friends who turkey hunt in Chesterfield, and some in Pageland, but for whatever reason I couldn?t get anything lined up.  I called up fellow Central High Football Coach Craig Hatcher and told him to put feelers out with some of his hunting buddies and see if he could line anything up.  Craig called me back a day later and said that he?d searched high and low and that it turned out that he could get me a turkey hunt with one of the best hunters around.  Bruce Puette is a great outdoorsmen and is also a teacher in Pageland.  He?s also taught in Cheraw and I?ve always heard stories about how good of an all around hunter he is.  My dad has told me on several occasions that Bruce knows his stuff when it comes to hunting?and after my first turkey hunt with Bruce, I have to agree.

I called Mr. Puette on Good Friday and we lined everything up for the hunt.  I asked him when and where he wanted me to meet him.  He told me to meet him at the Exxon gas station in Wallace, SC at 5:00 am!  If you?re not from South Carolina or if you?re from different areas of South Carolina, it takes about 40 minutes to drive to Wallace from Pageland.  Wallace is right across the county line and is located in Marlboro County.  The Pee Dee River (where we caught those catfish last weekend) is the county line.  Once you cross the bridge you have left Chesterfield County and are in the city of Wallace.  Anyway, to arrive at the Exxon station at 5:00 am, I would have to get up at 4:00 am.   When I talked to Mr. Puette on the phone I was just excited about lining the trip up and wasn?t really thinking about the timing.  After we hung up, I thought to myself that I would have to wake up at 4:00 am just to get there.  Bruce said he liked to get out there early which meant that I wasn?t going to get much sleep.  For some reason I just can?t go to sleep until late.  I usually end up online doing something and can?t get free until late.  I tried to go to bed early, but still couldn?t.  I went to sleep around 11:45 and rolled out at 4.  It wasn?t that bad initially. 

WeHuntSC.com - The 4 hours of sleep look   
The 4 hours of sleep look  

I drove down to Wallace in the truck and met Mr. Puette at the Exxon station.  We pulled up at the same time and got some drinks and then headed out.  We drove a few miles and ended up at one of his hunting locations.  I thought that it was a good sign that we saw 2 deer cross the road in front of us as we were driving to our hunting location.  We dropped our trucks off not too far from the gate and then started walking.  We walked in by the moonlight and Mr. Puette was telling me about his hunting land as we walked in.  It was a pretty long walk to our final destination.  Mr. Puette had come out the night before and watched where the turkeys went to roost and they had gone to roost behind where the ground-blind was set up. 

The area we were hunting backed into a swamp and he said that the turkey?s like to roost near the water because no bobcats or anything will mess with them when they?re over the water.  As I got situated in the blind, Mr. Pruette put out 2 decoys about 15 yards ahead of us to our right.  Shortly thereafter, Mr. Puette came back in and we got situated in the blind. I backed my chair up into a corner of the blind.  We were there really early and it was still dark outside.  We just sat in the ground blind and talked for a while.  Mr. Puette was telling me that he had gotten up early that morning and read Jeremiah 33:3 which reads ?Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.?  We talked briefly about this verse and we talked about all kind of stuff.  It seems Mr. Puette woke up at 4:00 am too and was reading the bible while I was on my way. 

   WeHuntSC.com - The turkey had a lot of culculburs in him
  The turkey was covered in "culculburs"

As the sun started to come up we could see 3 deer way out in the field.  I tried to get them on camera, but the lighting was so bad that I couldn?t get them in focus + they were way out there.  As we talked in the ground blind, Mr. Puette told me that patience is what kills turkeys, not turkey calling.  He said ?Patience kills turkeys, not great calling?put that in your blog.?  He said that you don?t have to be a great caller to get turkeys to come in; you just have to be patient.  He said that his patience while hunting turkeys has made him more successful than his ability to call them in.  Though, from sitting in the blind with him, I?d say that he?s not too bad of a caller either.  Throughout our turkey hunt he used a slate call and a diaphragm call.

The light was starting to slowly shine through the trees and Mr. Puette started calling with the slate call.  Off in the distance we could hear turkeys responding back to his calls.  He would call a little, listen a little, call a little, and listen a little.  I would say that about 70% of the times he called there was some kind of response.  Slowly but surely, the sounds of the responding turkeys was getting closer and closer.  We initially heard these turkeys responding back to us around 7:30 am.  In time, the sounds got louder and closer and finally we spotted the first turkey that entered the field.  It came out to our right about 50 yards down the edge of the field and was headed straight to the middle of the field.  It was a hen and it seemed as if the decoys spooked it because it started a quick trot out to the field after it cleared the edge.  (In the video I say it was a Jake, but I was wrong?the first turkey was a hen) We couldn?t really understand why the decoys may have spooked the turkey, but we were still hearing more turkeys behind us on both sides.  Randomly we would hear gobbles coming from the right and the left. 

As we were situated in the blind, we were looking out of mainly 2 windows.  I had a window right beside me to my left and then there was one straight ahead of me that I could see out of.  There was also a window behind me, but I was backed into the corner and couldn?t really see out of it without turning completely around.  Though, Mr. Puette could see out of it easily. 

WeHuntSC.com - A turkey track in the dirt near where we were hunting   
There were tracks like this every where near the area we hunted  

We kept hearing calls and then 3 more turkeys entered the field from the same direction as the first one had.  This group was a group of Jakes (young males).  They did the same thing as the first turkey did?they kind of ran out to the middle of the field.  This was puzzling us.  Soon thereafter another Jake darted into the field following the first three.   We had 4 turkeys out in front of us and then we saw 2 more coming from way out down the left side of the field as well.  The sun was up by now and we could see well.  The mixed group of hens and jakes was out in the middle of the field, but no big gobblers had come yet.  At first glance we thought some of those Jakes were big ones, but after seeing them out in the open we could tell that they weren?t mature birds. Mr. Pruette even had his gun up on one of them, but then took it back down when he saw the bird wasn?t big enough.  They were close enough to shoot, but that wasn?t what we were looking for. 

We sat there and whispered to each other about the locations of the turkeys.  Mr. Puette had been saying that the big boys won?t be too long behind the hens and Jakes.  The group of turkeys had been out in the field for about 20 minutes now and Mr. Puette told me that this was the time-frame when most turkey hunters mess up.  He said that there was always this time in between when the hens get out and when the big gobblers arrive.  He told me that most people don?t see any big beards on the males and so they ?overcall? or start calling too much.  This is where his lesson on patience was tying back in to our actual hunt.  So we sat and watched the turkeys out in the field for a while. 

   WeHuntSC.com - Bruce Puette was all smiles after our hunt
  The post-game shot of Mr. Puette out in the field.  I'd say he was happy

The majority of the turkeys that were in the group out in the field entered from our right side.  So we kept looking out the right window just waiting on a big gobbler to arrive from the same direction. Well, we never saw or heard any more turkeys from our right.  Matter of fact, we hadn?t heard anything gobble for some time now.  I was beginning to think that we wouldn?t see a good turkey.  It had been a good while since we heard any kind of turkey sound at this point. Then Mr. Pruette leaned over in the ground blind to grab something.  I don?t know if he was grabbing for crackers or for a different kind of turkey call because he had a few different types of calls in his bag.  As he leaned over, I heard something moving in the woods behind us.  Since I had never been turkey hunting before, I didn?t have an idea of what a turkey sounded like walking through the brush.   Mr.Puette leaning down gave me the space to swivel and look out of the window behind me.  When I turned around all I could see was feathers about 15 yards behind us.  I got excited and started tapping Mr. Pruette really hard.  I didn?t want to talk because I didn?t want to scare off the birds because I knew at least one of them was big.  So I was tapping him and pointing behind me while trying to be quiet.  He looked out of the window and saw the bird and his eyes got real big.  I grabbed the camera and turned it on.  As he grabbed his gun, I stuck the camera out of the blind and was literally just pointing it behind us in hopes of getting the bird on video.  I wasn?t satisfied with ?hoping? to get the shot on video so at the last second, I brought the camera back in the blind and videoed Mr. Pruette taking the shot.  You?ll see it in the video below.  He said ?Big Beard, Got?em?.  We sat for a second and made our way out of the blind.  Mr.Puette made the shot somewhere around 8:00 am. 

WeHuntSC.com - Mr. Pruette with the turkey on the back of the WeHuntSC.com truck   
Another shot with the turkey on the WeHuntSC.com truck  

Sure enough, Mr.Puette had dropped him in his tracks about 15 yards away from us.  It was a nice turkey, but what surprised me was how this turkey got in on us and wasn?t gobbling at all.  He was just walking through the woods quietly.  Mr. Pruette told me that there were 3 birds in this last group and Mr. Pruette took the biggest one.  We got out of the blind and the big group of turkeys was still in the field.  They didn?t really scatter until we started walking out beyond the edge and then I saw how fast a turkey can really run.  We walked up to the bird and took some pictures and continued rolling the video.  The beard was a nice one and the spurs were about 1 inch or so.  Mr.Puette said the beard was a nice one and that it was so big that it looked like a paint brush.  After looking at the bird, we got the decoys up and headed back towards the trucks.  As we walked back to the trucks we saw all kind of turkey and deer tracks and we even saw more turkeys down some old logging roads.  We literally had birds all around us. 

Let me deviate for a moment and say that had it not been for the Thermacell we had in the ground blind, I don?t know if we could have made it.  I didn?t realize this until we got out to go and look at the bird.  We turned it on about 10 minutes after we got there and I was glad that we did.  Those things really work!  I was getting eat up by bugs as soon as we got out of the blind.

I was really glad that Mr.Puette had allowed me to go turkey hunting with him.  I would say that we had a pretty good time, especially for my first turkey hunt ever!  I learned a lot about how to turkey hunt from Mr. Puette and it was a trip that I?ll never forget. 

I guess all the stories I?d previously heard about Mr. Pruette being a great outdoorsman were true. 

If you want to see the birds, it?s best if you watch this video in the HD format (720 p) and blow it up full screen.  These controls are in the bottom of the player.... you'll probably need to give this one some time to load though.
 

 

Regards,
 

Clint
 


2010 Turkey Season is Here!
   WeHuntSC.com - A pic of a gobbler on some WeHuntSC.com land
  This gobbler got within 2 feet of a WeHuntSC.com game cam...pretty soon, we'll have him on video!

Well the day has finally arrived.  Turkey season is in full force in South Carolina.  God bless all the wives, girlfriends, and friends of the die-hard turkey hunters around the state as they embark on a month long turkey hunting frenzy! 

I?ll admit that I?m no turkey hunting guru, but I am excited about getting out in the woods and seeing what happens.  With all the excitement and buzz building toward turkey season, I hope it?s going to be a good one.  The weather seems like its just right and we?ve been getting some really good pics on the game camera. 

Just a few weeks back Adam and I were in some sporting goods stores in Rock Hill, SC and the turkey hunters were out in full force stocking up for this turkey season.  You could feel the enthusiasm from the turkey hunters that we encountered.  It was neat to see everyone out and about and to feel the sense of excitement in the air.

Somewhere in the Florence area, J-Duck and Lee are game planning on some gobblers as well.  Hopefully they?ll be able to bring back something to the blog that will be fun to read and see.  I?m sure you frequently get tired of what I have to say. 

We?ve got a lot of gobblers all over one of the WeHuntSC.com properties.  We put the game camera out one week and came back with over 900 pics of various wildlife, but the majority were turkeys.  We?re working on a neat project that we?ll post about soon that just might involve one of these gobblers?at least I hope it does.  More on that later.

Regards,

Clint
 


Ramping Up For Turkey Season
 
   

While Hoot is somewhere drying the tears from his eyes after the ending of rabbit season, a lot of turkey hunters around the state are getting prepared for a hopeful turkey season.  The WeHuntSC.com crew is in that same boat.  In between food plot work, getting the Hunter?s Night Out lined up, and the joys of wedding planning ?we?re trying to get everything lined up to go turkey hunting as much as possible.  Our main man Lee Harrelson is getting ready and the WeHuntSC.com duck hunter, J-Duck, may even make some guest cameos on a blog or two (or at least hold a camera somewhere).

At this point in my life, I?ve never actually been turkey hunting, but I believe I?m going to give it a shot this season and see how it goes.  Adam and I recently had a conversation at the Sportsman?s Incorporated in Rock Hill, SC with a gentleman about turkey hunting and the guy told me that turkey hunting is addictive and even worse than ?Buck Fever?.  I?m going to try to test his theory at some point during the next month.  It would be neat to see one strut his stuff across a field or in some pines. 

We?ve got some things lined up for this turkey season and we hope to post blogs about everything soon.  Remember, If you?re entering a bird in the turkey contest be sure to have the date written on a piece of paper in the picture or you won?t qualify!  Don?t forget your cameras?

Regards,


Clint
 


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