This blog is a hobby for me, and like all hobbies, sometimes you have time for them, sometimes you don't. I have let it sit idle because I didn't have any time to keep up with it. I enjoy doing this, so even though time is still scarce, I'm going to try and resume the Days Afield journal. So here is my re-entry into the bloggesphere with a summary of New Jersy's first week of turkey season.
"A", our first week of season, week is over, and while we started off good, it ended up being a little tough for me.
I skipped Monday, but went out early Tuesday morning to tape my brother’s second turkey hunt ever. We set up on his friend’s property in a box blind overlooking a clover field. I got the camera situated just as the sky was lightening in the east. Jeff had bought a new slate call so I scratched it up a little and was going to make a few soft calls to see how it sounded. I leaned out the window a bit and just as I touched the striker to the slate, he hit me on the back and said a bird had landed in the field. It was a long beard.
I scrambled back in the blind, got the camera on and found the bird in the LCD screen as it ran towards our jake and hen decoys. Just as the bird moved to the edge of the window, and almost out of the camera's view, Jeff shot and rolled him. He got back up, ran back in full camera view, and Jeff shot him again, putting him down for good. It was over in about 15 seconds. A zone 21 longbeard that weighed 21 pounds, 1 inch spurs and 10 inch beard.
On Wednesday I went to a farm in zone 20 that I used to hunt a lot, and recently re-gained permission to turkey there. I had scouted it several times the 2 weeks prior to season and saw birds at the top of one field just after first light on all 3 occasions. Even though the birds always roosted in the bottom part of the field in years past, this year I was seeing them in the top, so that is where I set up my blind.
Just as it got light I heard at least 3, maybe 4 or 5 birds gobbling like crazy…right off the bottom part of the field where they always had been before. They gobbled a lot for about 15 minutes before flying down, then got quiet. At about 6:30am, I made a few calls and heard them sound off, but now they were in the field. There is a rise in the middle of the field, so I couldn’t see them, but could tell they were about 300 yards away on the other end of the field. I called some more and soon saw two red heads pop up over the rise about 150 yards away.
The two longbeards came towards me, but held up at 50 yards and just kept strutting and gobbling there, just out of bow range. Even though I had two hens and a jake decoy set up, the birds didn’t come any closer. Then two hens came out in the corner of the field to my left, and the strutters went that way, and the hens led them off. After they cleared the area, I moved the blind to where we have killed birds here in the past, right down in the corner where they came down. If they did the same thing on Thursday that they did on Wednesday, I would be in the perfect spot.
I was up at 4:00am again on Thursday for another try. Brian met me at my house at 4:30 and we headed out to the farm to see if moving the blind would pay off. He was playing camera man today. Right on cue at 5:40, in the same place they had been Wednesday, several birds began gobbling, and gobbled like crazy no more than 75 yards away from my blind. All got quiet at about 6:05am, and we figured they had come down and would be out in the field any minute. After a few minutes, we heard more gobbling in the woods behind the blind. There were several birds gobbling for about an hour, back and forth in the woods behind us, but they never came to the field like they had always done in the past. Foiled again.
Friday morning, the last day of "A" week, I went back to the blind with Jeff in tow as camera man this time. I found my blind nearly destroyed. The wind had picked it up off the stakes and blown it around, breaking the poles that hold the top up, tearing and collapsing the blind in the process. I did my best to fix it up and put it back in place, but I didn’t want to make too much commotion because I believed the birds were close again. The birds had come to the field edge several times yesterday, but would not enter the field. They could not see the blind from where they were on the edge of the woods, but they could see the decoys, and I thought maybe the decoys made them wary. So I set up no decoys, and planned on doing no calling.
They started a little early this time. At 5:30am, 3 or 4 birds began gobbling right where they had been the last two days, maybe 75 yards away. I was sure they were coming this time. I struggled to find a position to shoot the bow from inside the mangled blind. The top was sagging and the sides not fully pushed out because the poles were broken. It was cramped under the best conditions with a bow in this blind, but in this condition, my top limb was hitting the top of the blind and my arm hitting the back of the blind on the draw. I found a spot to make it work if I got the chance, and then waited for flydown.
They gobbled like crazy until 6:25 am before coming down. Within a few minutes, a hen popped out of the woods to the left of my blind, about 80 yards away, and stepped into the field. She was followed by 2 long beards at full strut and gobbling like mad. Soon another hen and third longbeard entered the field and all three went into full strut 80 yards away.
In the past, the birds have entered the field, and then walked along the grassy area where my blind sits, picking at seeds and bugs in the high grass. This is also what they did Wednesday before cresting the rise in the field to the right of the blind. The hens started moving in my direction, but then wandered off towards the middle of the field, picking at the freshly turned dirt instead of moving into the grassy area to feed. They went across the field, coming no closer than 75 yards, and took all three longbeards with them. And that was the end of "A" week.
I have a "B" week permit for the same zone, and another plan. We’ll see what happens.
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