I’ve got a friend who lives in the Myrtle Beach area named Justin Brooks. Justin is part of the WeHuntSC.com crew and he’s been telling us he had some turkeys down there and we’ve been promising to go down and hunt with him for a while. Well this past weekend we finally made it happen. 

Jason Love and I traveled to the coast last Friday evening. We made a road trip and told hunting stories the whole way. We were excited about the upcoming weekend hunts and we both looked forward to catching up with Justin.

After reconnecting Friday night we went to bed early so as to be able to go hard on Saturday. We left our around 4:45 because we had to drive a little while to get to the hunting lease. Justin had been scouting and seeing birds in several areas and we set up overlooking a wheat field for the first set of the day. 

Unfortunately it was very foggy on Saturday morning and we didn’t have much action right as the sun was rising. We stayed in this area until around 9am at which point we decided to move to a different field. However, as we drove off we saw 2 hens and a small tom on the edge of an adjacent field. We knew the turkeys were starting to move.

Move to the Big Field
Justin’s lease is segmented off into quadrants of logging roads, rows of trees, and fields. This makes moving around more feasible than in the area where we typically hunt. So we drove around the edge of the property and walked through the woods to a large field. When we got there we saw the field was full of turkeys. It was a beautiful sight. The only problem was that the turkeys were out in the middle of this huge field and there were Toms, Jakes, and Hens there so not much responded to our calling.

While we sat on the edge of the pines overlooking the field we noticed a water snake in the creek right beside us. It was interesting to be just feet away from the snake.

pic.twitter.com/aIL845pHO4

— Clint Patterson (@CBPSC) April 30, 2016

The Frustrated Tom & Frustrated Hunters
We watched these turkeys feed for a long time. They moved all around the field feeding. We had 4 turkeys (2 hens and 2 jakes) that kind of stayed near us… just to our right. We really wanted to shoot a nice tom since there were some nice ones out there. Though the Toms were running back and forth across the ditch trying to run some other jakes off. It was indeed frustrating to have them move closer to us then to have them turn right back around and run across the field. 

At one point one of the nice toms started working his way down the field on our side. We thought this was going to be it, but after closing over 150 yards the tom crossed the ditch heading to our right. He was too far out to shoot (even though in the video he looks really close because I was zoomed in). So the toms were frustrated by the presence of the jakes and we were frustrated that we couldn’t get any closer to the toms.  

Retreating to the Point
After we had sat there for a while watching these turkeys Justin said he thought we could move and be closer to where some of the turkeys were heading. So we went back to the truck and rode down the old logging road through the woods toward the area where at least one big tom was headed. When we got there we parked the truck and started walking the logging road.

Justin grabbed one of his decoys that he called “Tommy” and kept it in front of him the whole time. Jason and I had not experienced this style of hunting before and usually when we try to chase birds we don’t have much success. However, Justin has obviously hunted that area and in that style way more than we had. He told us about how he went down to Georgetown and used the same technique and was successful with it there too. Jason and I were up for anything and we followed Justin’s lead.  

Once we got closer to the field Justin brought up his binoculars and said he saw a tom out in the field heading toward the tree line. So we made a hard right into the woods in order to center ourselves in the tree line on the edge of the field. We just had to go through the woods in order to get there without bumping the tom. So we made our way through the woods (and caught red bugs along the way, an occurrence we would later not be pleased with) and started working toward the edge of the field where the planted pines stopped.

When we got to the edge Justin crawled up and quietly put the Tommy decoy on the edge. Since we were stalk hunting this turkey I did not try to move into the optimal videoing location because that could have potentially ruined the hunt. So I had to video from behind the guys and we needed to leave a little brush in front of us to camouflage us. 

Sure enough the tom in the field started working his way toward the decoy. I couldn’t get him really clear in the camera, but when we went full-screen later on you could barely see him moving between the leaves. Onces the turkey got within shooting distance Jason dropped the hammer on him. The decoy and the trees both moved forward and backward with the repercussion of the shot. The turkey flopped to the ground and Justin instantly popped up and started running out there. I’m not sure why he did that, but Jason followed suit and I picked up the camera and headed out too. When Justin got near the bird the turkey jumped up and started flying off. Both Justin and Jason then stopped and went into battle mode and unleased the fury on the turkey. It seemed almost like a pheasant hunt because they were trying to down the bird as he flew off. I think on shot #3 or #4 one of them finally connected with the turkey and got him on the ground. And I got it all on camera too!

After the shot we all continued walking out to the bird, got some post game pics and video quotes and then tagged him and headed out. We were a happy crew!

Check out the video of the hunt…

In Summary
The Saturday morning hunt was one I won’t be soon forgetting… especially as long as these red bugs keep me itching! It was really neat to see all the turkeys out in the field just strutting and feeding. It was a beautiful sight and we enjoyed spending time with each other in God’s creation and observing nature. We also learned a thing or two about stalk hunting from Justin. We may have to give it a shot at some point and see what we can do. All in all it was a great day in the woods with a very interesting end to the hunt!