First Day of our Turkey Season

First of all, we found out that 4 AM is too late to get up. By the time we got ready, got out to the pasture and all set up it was about 5:30 and pretty light already. Tomorrow we will get an earlier start.

Set-up went pretty smoothly - I got the decoys ready while Rick got the blind set up. Then Rick set out the decoys and I secured the blind with the stakes (this procedure kept us out of each other's way). We got the rest of our gear inside the blind and it was time to wait for turkeys to show up. The one thing we had been hearing from other hunters was don't do too much calling. I guess this late in the season it doesn't do much good anyway.

Here's Rick watching out for a turkey to show up to visit our decoys.

It was a pretty slow morning and it got progressively windier as we sat out there, so our tom turkey decoy had some feathers blow out of his tail (not good!)

Around 9:45, Rick spotted a turkey out his window. He watched it for a while and found out it was a hen. In the spring turkey hunt, you can only shoot a bird that has an visible beard, so we just got to watch her. The interesting thing was that for the entire time we watched her, we never heard her make any sound. Sometimes when the hens are out walking around they will be making little clucks, but this one was completely silent.


She was a really big bird and spent lots of time pecking on the ground for bugs. She didn't pay any attention to our blind. However as she came out from the woods behind us, she did seem quite interested in the decoys.

"Hey, where did those guys come from....I thought I was the only turkey around here?"

She continued her slow journey across the pasture and passed within probably 3 yards of the decoys. The hens seem to be a little bit smarter than the toms and she apparently recognized right away that these were not real turkeys. (I don't think Tom's tatty-looking tail added any authenticity either!)

The hen decoy is a pretty good likeness though, don't you think?

We packed everything up around 1 PM and headed for home. Though we didn't get a turkey, it was a nice morning, not too chilly, and we were serenaded for a good part of the time by a Rose-Breasted Grosbeak in the trees behind us.