Vintage Spring Hunting.....Without a Scope!

After a long winter of cabin fever, there are few better ways to shake it off than to take to the woods with your trusted turkey gun, in this case a Browning A5 Magnum 12 carried by my son, Grant.

Almost as vintage as the shotgun itself is my trusted mounted hen decoy from Hazel Creek. Back when another of our hunting companies became the world leader in turkey harvest at over 300 per year, we started using the mounted hen decoys and used them for over 20 years. The real feather decoys calm the bird down, so that they are fully sold that it is a real decoy and are less likely to look around and spot the hunter. This has always been especially helpful when guiding folks new to turkey hunting.

The evening before the hunt we were able to locate a gobbler with a few hens in a typical breeding flock. I felt like we had them pretty well pegged and would be able to set up for a fly down hunt the next morning. Fly down hunts are not easy, but they can be made a whole lot easier by just getting up and out to the field an hour earlier than you would like. You can get away with a lot more if you set up while the birds are sleeping. Then, get into position, take a nap, and wake up to the gobbling….hopefully.

For being the outfitter who at one point (maybe still) is responsible for more wild turkeys getting tagged than anyone in the world (3600 last count) I’m a firm believer in that when it comes to calling it’s not how well you say it but rather, what you say and when you say it. That’s the only explanation I have for being able to readily call turkeys in almost at will, while being a technically terrible caller.

The Merriam’s gobbler struck up a few gobbles in the tree so I gave him the hat trick and he bounced down to display for his hens….and our hen. After a beautiful one hour hunt that included just about everything you could ask for, Grant had his turkey dinner.

And it’s back to the house for coffee.