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