Mr. Bruce Puette and his Bow-Tech Tomkat

The bow and arrows on the tail gate

	The Blind and the Jake Intimidator on the 2nd day's hunt

Making use of the new Thermacell Swivel Clip

	The view from inside the blind

	Mr. Puette sitting at the base of the tree

Turkey season starts on April 1st in my county because I?m located in the upper part of SC. I?ve been looking forward to it and have been counting down the weekends until turkey season got here.  This past weekend was the opening weekend and on Saturday morning I went turkey hunting again with Mr. Bruce Puette in Marlboro County. I had been looking forward to our trip and it turned out to be one of the most memorable turkey hunts I?ve been on. 

We met really early at the entrance gate to the hunting land.  Mr. Puette?s brother, sister, and nephew would also be hunting in other areas of the land as well.  We all set out going our different ways and Mr. Puette and I were heading to the back of the property where a swampy area backed in to the Pee Dee River.  And we went deep in the swamp.  Mr. Puette said that the turkeys hadn?t been working in the fields like they normally do by this time of the year so we were going to try something different. I was interested to see how the new CrossOver Camo would do in the swampy environment of the Pee Dee River area and it blended in very nicely.

The new Thermacell that kept us mosquito free

We walked in by the moonlight and as we began walking we stopped and looked at the stars and Mr. Puette pointed out the Big Dipper.  He said you can always find whichever direction North is by looking at the stars from the Big Dipper.  Even though we probably walked a mile until we finally got to our location it didn?t bother me much because it was a chance to get some blood flowing and warm up.  It was cold early that morning?34 degrees to be exact.  It was chilly and I didn?t have enough layers on and walking helped me warm up some.

We ended up walking through fields, 4-wheeler paths, old logging roads, even jumping trees, and yes?water higher than my ankles! The wet socks countered the new warmth that I had just gained from walking. I also found a pretty deep stump hole on the way in too.  My right foot ended up wetter than the left because I only found that stump hole with my right foot. Once we got back pretty deep in the woods we heard an owl hoot.  We stopped and every time another owl hooted we stopped to see if any turkeys responded. At one point Mr. Puette said that he was going to do an owl call to see if we could locate any birds.  I anticipated that he would dig in his pocket and get out a call, but Mr. Puette just held his hand to his mouth and yelled ?Hoo, Hoo, Ho, Hoooo? and amazingly an owl responded about 50 yards away.  To be honest, I was pretty impressed with how accurate Mr. Puette?s owl call sounded. Mr. Puette fired back with a ?WOOOOOoooo? that ended with a lot of bass in the sound.  The owl fired right back.  It was neat that he was able to get several owls calling to each other with just his natural voice.  The downside was that no turkeys gobbled back at us.  We kept on walking.

	Mr. Puette on the way out

We finally reached the furthest point that we could walk and we stopped again.  This time Mr. Puette pulled out a crow call and it made a loud shriek as he blew it.  We waited, and a couple of seconds later, a turkey, that sounded about 70 ? 100 yards away, hammered back at us.  Mr. Puette pumped his fist like a golfer does after sinking a putt and we headed toward the sound looking to make a setup.  We walked about 40 yards down an old logging road and Mr. Puette said we ought to set up on a tree that was about 5 yards off the path. 

Mr. Puette had been carrying his gun as well as a home-made blind that he created and a small stool.  He had given me a stool that I carried in too. The home-made blind was some camo, burlap-like material that wrapped around 4 wooden sticks.  He told me that 4 sticks and some burlap was a lot cheaper than most blinds you find in stores! He set this up just in front of us as I started getting the video stuff set up.

I had all of the stuff I needed to video setup and had got two Thermacells out and fired them both up because deep in the swamp mosquitoes are thick and even though it was cold? I wasn?t taking any chances.  I put the new Thermacell in front of us and put last year?s model Thermacell to my left.  Needless to say we didn?t get bothered by any bugs or mosquitoes during this hunt. 

We were finally situated and the sun was slowly starting to shine through the woods. Mr. Puette did some calling early to see if anything would respond and we had turkeys gobbling to our right, middle, and to our left.  We were definitely in a good location, but we were worried that the turkeys would come off the roost and go a different direction. Randomly Mr. Puette would call and the turkeys arbitrarily responded. We had to wait and to keep our eyes peeled.

Primos Slates used during the hunt

I was sitting on the left side of the tree and Mr. Puette was on the right side.  As I scanned the woods (and I say wood because last time I used the word ?forest? I got criticized?thanks Hoot!) I saw something to my left that looked like a dark stump, but I didn?t remember seeing this stump before so it kind of caught me off guard.  Since I was in a new area, it was kind of ?hazy?, and since I couldn?t focus well I wasn?t sure.  I watched the dark looking stump and then all of a sudden it started moving and the shape turned into a fan-tail.  I was pumped! I tapped Mr. Puette immediately and told him that we had a gobbler about 25 yards to our left.  This turkey had slipped up on us and hadn?t made one sound. Yes, turkeys were gobbling, but they were further away?this one came in silent. 

There were so many trees and brush in front of us that it was not only difficult to see the turkey, but it was even more difficult to film the turkey.  In retrospect I should have turned the auto-focus mechanism off, but I wasn?t chancing any extra movements while he was that close to us. Because Mr. Puette was behind me (in the line of sight for the bird) he couldn?t see it.  The bird was standing behind a big tree and was stepping to the right, puffing up, spinning, and stepping back to the left, puffing and spinning and did this on repeat.  It was very odd, but he was staying in one spot.  The whole time Mr. Puette couldn?t see the bird and he kept asking me ?Are you sure??, ?How far out??, and ?Where is he??  Finally the turkey stepped out far enough to where Mr. Puette could see it.  At this point at least he knew I wasn?t lying about a bird being that close. 

	I could barely focus on this turkey

As we were watching this turkey strut his stuff in circles we had other gobblers hammering out from other directions.  We didn?t know where to look we had so many birds talking around us, but I kept my eye on the gobbler to the left. I was frustrated at this turkey because he kept spinning and puffing and spinning and puffing and he wouldn?t come out to where I could get a good shot at him with the camera and Mr. Puette was just itching to shoot him, but it would have been a forced shot so he held off.  Another frustrating thing was that the camera kept focusing on the underbrush of the woods rather than the turkey?so the majority of the footage I got is really blurry because we were so low on the ground and because the turkey was staying just behind the brush.  I bet we watched this turkey for about 15-20 minutes at just about 20 ? 25 yards away from us.  Mr. Puette even kicked the brush with his feet simulating the sound of a hen scratching, but nothing we did would entice this turkey to come any closer. Eventually the turkey faded back into the woods where he came from and we lost him. 

The turkey out in front of us

We sat there a little dejected, but still hopeful talking about it the whole time and couldn?t figure it out.  We sat for another 15 ? 20 minutes and we even talked about moving to a different location.  Mr. Puette called randomly and nothing much responded and the thoughts of our hunt from last year came back to me.  I remembered Mr. Puette saying ?Patience kills turkeys?. We sat there a little while longer and then out of the blue we heard a loud gobble right out in front of us and Mr. Puette instantly grabbed his gun and got in shooting position. I couldn?t see any turkey so I asked him ?Where is he?? and Mr. Puette responded ?I don?t know, but he?s close!?  We sat there on alert scanning the woods.  Then I saw the dark spot moving through some woods out in front of us this time and I zoomed in on him. The turkey was finally moving across the front of our location heading to the right?which means he was getting at a better angle for Mr. Puette to shoot. Mr. Puette had the gun up and I was just trying to follow the bird.  With such dense wood and brush in the swampy area it was tough.  The turkey finally got out to where Mr. Puette could shoot and he didn?t waste any time. I couldn?t see the bird so I just filmed Mr. Puette.  A loud boom rang through the woods and I saw the bird fly up.  Mr. Puette said ?I missed him? and I said ?No you didn?t, he just crashed?.  I had heard the bird go down, but Mr. Puette didn?t.  He got up and walked over to that direction and the turkey jumped up and started running.  He got his gun up and the turkey turned and started running toward him! Mr. Puette rang out 3 shots and on the 3rd shot he stopped the turkey in his tracks and the turkey was only about 10 yards away from him. The footage wasn?t good on that so it isn?t worth posting, but I think he was about to get spurred had he not had that last shot in his gun!  After the hunt ended we took a bunch of pictures and videos.

As I was taking pictures Mr. Puette said ?Did you see that tree?? and I said ?What tree?? I had seen a thousand trees that were in the way of me filming the turkey, but obviously he was referring to one in particular.  He pointed and said ?Look at the ?Twisted Oak??.  We walked over and saw something that was pretty rare in my opinion.  Two white oak trees were side by side and one had fallen into the other and over time they had grown together.  It was a unique site.  I took some pics and videos of it as well. I know that I?ve never seen anything like that before?and those trees were huge.

The deer cracked acorn shell		The Twisted Oaks

	Wildlife Energy Shots & the Gobbler

Five yards from the base of that tree Mr. Puette picked up the top half of an acorn shell and said ?look at that? and I looked at it and said ?Yeah I bet some deer love that huh?.  He responded ?Look closer at it? and I did and when I focused in on it he said ?Look at the shape of the break in the shell? those are deer teeth marks that cracked it? and sure enough you could see the outline of the deer?s teeth. Mr. Puette sure pays attention to detail?especially when he?s walking.  He finds arrowheads and picks up on anything out of the ordinary.  He?s just got that knack.

After a couple of more pictures we headed back to base camp.  It was a long walk back to the entrance and I was definitely glad I had some Wildlife Energy drink with me on this occasion.  As we walked back over the path we came in on Mr. Puette was looking around every corner to see if any turkeys were strutting in the roads.  He?d already told me that if we saw another one that we would be stopping and setting up again!

 

Below is the raw footage of the hunt if you want to see it without effects

I always enjoy going hunting with Mr. Puette because there?s usually some action involved and I also always learn something. Mr. Puette says I bring him good luck, but I don?t know about that.  Most of the time whenever you take a camera in the woods it means that you?re definitely not going to see anything, but so far he and I are 2 for 2 with turkeys and videos.

I hope to get in on more hunts with Mr. Puette and next time I?ll try to get better focus on the turkey!

Regards,

Clint
 

	Bruce Puette with his doe and Muzzle loader

Last Spring Mr. Bruce Puette took me on my first turkey hunt.  After the hunt I posted a blog entry titled ?The Day I Learned How to Turkey Hunt?.  I got all fired up about turkey hunting and went and bought all kinds of turkey calls, camo, etc.  Well, Mr. Puette also deer hunts and we just had another successful hunt.

Two weeks ago I gave Mr. Puette a call to see if he wanted to go deer hunting at some point.  I told him that I didn?t plan on bringing a gun and that I just wanted to video one of his hunts again.  It seemed to work out well the first time with turkeys, so I figured it would probably hold true with deer, plus I had gotten a better camera since turkey season!  Mr. Puette and I got a date on the calendar and I was looking forward to it.

So this past Saturday I crossed the Pee Dee River into Marlboro County and met Mr. Puette at 4:30 in the afternoon.  It had rained a lot in the previous week (we really needed the rain) and a cool front had started to moved in.  It was still warm, but nothing like it has been.  The conditions seemed just right for seeing some deer. 

The road we came in on

When I arrived we talked around the trucks for a bit and put on our camo.  Mr. Puette said he wanted to hunt with his muzzle loader to see if he could get one with it.  Mr. Puette was shooting a Traditions Pursuit XLT, Black Powder, 50 caliber.  I?ve never even seen a muzzle loader so I really didn?t know much about it.  While we talked, Mr. Puette loaded his gun.  Me, being slack, didn?t even think about videoing how he did it.  After the hunt, I was kind of mad at myself for not getting it on film.  Anyway, I think he put in the black powder and then the bullet.  I know that he took a rod out from beneath the barrel of the gun and pushed the bullet and powder down the barrel.  He really had to put some muscle into it to get it down the barrel too.  It didn?t just drop easily.  After he got the load down the barrel he dropped the rod down on it and it bounced.  He said when the rod bounces then the load is ?set? correctly.  I have never I seen anyone load their gun like that, so it was pretty neat to see.

We headed out to the deer stand not too long after that.  We rode a 4-wheeler to get there and I?m glad we did because it was a pretty good distance from where we parked the trucks.  The rain really did get the road wet and we rode through some big puddles on the way.  You?ll see it in the video, but it was pretty scene on the way in as we rode deep into the forest back to the stand. 

	The Condo Stand

We arrived to the stand and headed up the ladder.  Mr. Puette had us hunting in style in a nice condo-like stand that he had previously built.  The stand was situated on the edge of some woods overlooking a cut-over.  From our vantage point the cut-over was to the right and the hardwoods were on the left.  Mr. Puette sat on the left side with the best angle on the shooting lane and I sat on the right.  Mr. Puette had a shooting lane cut out to the left and had some corn down on the shooting lane. 

We had been sitting in the stand for about 5 minutes and Mr. Puette said that one of the branches down the shooting lane was bothering him, so he climbed down out of the stand and walked over there and broke the branch off!  Mr. Puette returned to the stand and we sat for a little while and observed the scene looking for movement.  Not too long after that we heard a shot off in the distance that was really early.  Mr. Puette looked at me and said ?That?s a good sign?the deer are moving?.  Shortly thereafter Mr. Puette got his grunt call out and grunted a little bit, but nothing responded.  We continued looking over the cut-over and shooting lanes for a while and then we heard the sound of stick breaking behind us to our left.  If you?re a hunter then you?ve probably heard a sound like this before.  It sounded like an old limb lying on the ground that got stepped on and snapped.  It?s a distinct sound and it got our attention.  For the next little while we were scanning back to our left really hard to see if anything was coming.  We kept looking, but nothing ever showed from that side.

 

I was hopeful to see some deer, but pretty soon the sun would start setting and go behind the trees.  When the light gets low it?s hard to film so I was keeping my fingers crossed that something would move sooner than later.  Since we heard the sound from the left, I kept glancing over that way thinking I would spot something, but I never did.  The cut-over was so thick, I never thought anything would come from that side, but just when I least expected it?I saw a flicker of white out the corner of my eye. 

Doe in the field

I looked to my right and saw a doe?s head pop up and down once right on the edge of the cutover and I reached to turn the camera on.  I turned to Mr. Puette and whispered??here comes a doe? and I turned the video camera on and clicked the record button.  The brace on the right side of the stand was helping guard my arm and some of my movement from the deer seeing them so that helped me a little.  I got the camera on and zoomed in quickly on the deer.  Mr. Puette just stayed still and watched the screen on my camera rather than leaning up and spooking the deer.  I zoomed in and then saw another doe coming behind the first.  It was obviously more than one and the lead doe kept walking.  A few seconds later?another doe, then another.  They just kept coming and you couldn?t really see them until they got out in the open due to the thickness of the brush in the cut-over.  I tried to keep all the deer in the same shot, but the lead deer got way out and more and more does just kept popping out.  I was zooming in and out, panning right to left trying to keep track of them all.  It was really neat though because the light was still good and I was getting really close-up footage of the deer!  Sitting behind your computer watching the video it doesn?t seem like it?s too hard, but when you?re out in nature trying to get it done, it can be more difficult than you think.  It?s a lot to manage at once (camera angle, being quiet, steady shots, not moving much etc), but it is worth it if you?re lucky enough to pull it off

.

Anyway, the does came out of the cut-over on the right and headed towards the woods.  Mr. Puette said ?They?re headed to the corn? and he got his gun up.  He had a little better line-of-sight than I did because of where he was sitting and he whispered ?Here they come?.  I zoomed out for a quick view of him and his gun and then zoomed right back in on the corn pile.  I saw the first one pop its head out and I knew it wasn?t the largest one.  Mr. Puette was saying ?Is that the big one? ?you can hear it in the video.  We were waiting on the largest doe to get there and it didn?t take long.  Three does stepped out before the bigger came into vision.  I told him that the last one was the biggest out of the group.  When she stepped into the shooting lane she was broad-sided and Mr. Puette had the perfect angle.  Mr. Puette clicked his safety off (which you?ll hear in the video too) and the doe perked her head up?she knew something was wrong?and then BOOOOOM?Mr. Puette had shot and smoke went everywhere.

	Doe in the shooting lane

Since I had never been hunting with a black-powder gun I didn?t know to expect this part, but when he shot a big cloud of smoke came out of the gun.  It was neat looking and it hovered in the air for a couple of seconds and it also had a different kind of smell to it.  The smoke cleared and Mr. Puette said ?I don?t know if I hit her? and I said ?Well let?s look at the replay? and see.  I don?t think what I said initially registered with Mr. Puette, but a few seconds later we were looking at the shot he had just made on the screen in my camera from the stand.  From looking at the video we were sure that Mr. Puette had a made a good shot.  I think he enjoyed being able to see the shot right there in the stand.  It was like instant replay and it let us breathe a little easier seeing the shot because we knew that he had made a good shot.  We sat in the stand for a few moments and then got down to go trail the doe.  As we walked we could hear the rest of the does running off and blowing in the distance.  About 30 yards later we found the doe.  Mr. Puette had bagged a doe with his Muzzle loader and it was a textbook hunt. 

There were some others hunting in the area so we waited until it got dark before we left so as to not mess up their hunts.  While we were waiting we heard another shot.  After it got too dark to hunt, we headed back out to the trucks.  Turned out that one of the guy?s in the group had brought his wife and she got her first deer that night as well.  It seems the deer were moving! 

Below is the video of the hunt? sorry for the low-level production, but I?m still figuring all this video stuff out

It was a great hunt and I got some good footage.  Looks like Mr. Puette can get it done with turkeys and deer and the type of firearm doesn?t seem to matter either!  Next time I?ll be sure to video and document how he puts the load into the Muzzle loader.  We had a great time and Mr. Puette told me that I brought him good luck, but I?m not too sure about that?I think he?s just a good hunter. 

Also, I got a feeling we?ll be filming a bow hunt before too long because Mr. Puette is also a bow hunter!  I bet he?s good at that too?

Regards,

Clint
 

	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. 

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. 

	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. 

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. 

	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. 

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