Blog Entries from the WeHuntSC.com blogging crew
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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