Outdoorsmen Adventures.com

In one of my last articles, I mentioned the Good, the Bad and the Ugly that I’ve experienced while turkey hunting.

This article will be about another of our spring turkey hunts. On this hunt, I was hoping that all of the bad luck was behind us, as this would be a brand new day and things just had to run smoother.

Day two of our “spring” turkey hunt at Antler Ridge Lodge www.antlerridgelodge.com couldn’t have started out any worse. When I woke up, I glanced out the window to see what appeared to be 6 to 8 inches of fresh wet snow.

This couldn’t be happening, I had to be half asleep, it had to be a bad dream, it was May when the May flowers were suppose to start appearing, not covered with snow.

“Rats” there goes Plan A again. Well we really didn’t have a choice; with only one day left to hunt, we had to go out no matter what the conditions.

Since I had tagged my two birds the day before, I’d be calling the birds for Tom Mitchell, KELO FM, Sioux Falls and with some luck our cameraman would be able to film the whole process.

WE set up our “brown” camo blind in the heavy wet snow adjacent to a shelterbelt were the birds were known to travel. The three of us climbed inside to begin what we hoped would be a successful day of turkey hunting.

To be honest, I felt a little silly perched in a brown blind in the middle of a totally white snow covered pasture.

But who would have thought that we’d need clothes and gear that was snow camo in May. I guess I should have known better, it happened to me before.

Oh well, I thought, here goes nothing and started out with a few soft yelps and purrs, hoping that some love sick Tom would hear it and come stumbling in.

The first and only bird we saw while in the blind was a large hen that poked her head around the edge of the shelterbelt. Thinking I might have a chance to bring her over and a Tom that might be following her, I did my best to draw her over.

I’d call and she’d move a few feet stop and look at our decoy and little by little worked our way, unfortunately there was no birds with her. I was able to bring her right up to the front of the blind, toyed with her a little and then let her walk away.

After an extended period of time, we decided that perhaps this wasn’t the turkey honey hole we’d hope it would be and decided to go with Plan B that would be the old run and gun method!

Our plan was to move out along the shelterbelt stopping and calling from time to time hoping to get a gobble, if none where heard, we’d continue moving until we either heard a bird or spotted a one that we could put the sneak on.

Well, this is where the “Bad” rears its ugly head. My hunting partner Tom was in the lead with my cameraman and me following close behind.

As we made our way around the shelterbelt, we spotted several birds working their way along a wooded draw. Unfortunately, when we poked our heads around the edge of the trees, we drew the attention of a group of calves that charged over to see what these strange looking camo people walking around in the snow where all about.

This of course put the turkeys on edge and they moved away at a very quick pace, at this point, I was getting the feeling that Plan B was beginning to really stink.

We slid off to the north to try and put distance between the calves and ourselves trying get ahead of the birds.

As we headed west, we spotted several turkeys with their heads protruding over the ridge in front of us. Of course they spooked and ran off down the hill, since both Plan A & B had been a total failure, we simply sat there trying to figure out what our next move would be.

Suddenly a turkey fan appeared along the ridgeline the birds had just vacated and it seemed to be facing away from us.

Our only alternative, “Plan C” was to have our cameraman film while Tom and I low crawled through the snow in order to get close enough to take a shot.

Tom took the lead with me following close behind him with our turkey decoy.

I don’t know about Tom, but it didn’t take me long to realize that my low crawling days were long gone as I hadn’t crawled far when I realized that this was work, a lot more work than I was used to.

As we inched closer to the Tom, that “Bad” thing appeared again as another turkey popped his head over the ridge looking right at us. We froze and only moved forward when the bird went down to feed.

We managed to within 50 yards of the bird when the 2nd Tom finally decided that he was going to keep an eye on these strange brown clumps lying in the snow.

The jig was up and Tom would have to take the shot. Unfortunately there was a slight rise in front of us right in front of the bird that we hadn’t noticed and it took the brunt of the charge from his 12 gauge, scattering birds in every direction.

As we rose, I glanced back at my cameraman to see if he’d been filming and he gave me the thumbs up. Great, we got the miss on film, but not the double kill from the day before.

I suggested to Tom that we should sneak a peek over the hill just in case there were birds bringing up the rear.

Tom moved out ahead with me off to my right with the cameraman bringing up the rear. He’d just topped the hill when I noticed a turkey on the far ridge, we immediately hit the ground hoping t the bird had not seen us.

Tom was lying flat on his back just over the edge of the ridge; with me lying about 5 yards behind him. Since the bird was facing the opposite direction, we assumed he hadn’t spotted us, so I gave a few soft calls, causing it to look our way and then quickly going back to back to feeding.

What now, we were out of Plans, but we needed to do something. That’s when I told Tom that I was going to hold the decoy in front of me as I slid up to the ridge to see if I could get the birds attention.

As I moved forward with the hen decoy, I gave a few soft putts and purrs with my diaphragm call. Once the Tom saw the decoy, he started heading down hill in our general direction.

This was where the “Good” part came in as the bird came down into the bottom along a tree line, he appeared on our side of the gully with another Tom in tow.

The birds slowly worked our way I whispered to Tom “they should be in range” and his 12 gauge barked tipping the back bird over backwards, causing it to tumble end over end all the way to the bottom of the draw.

As we worked our way down the hillside, we talked about how well the decoy had worked bringing the two Toms, allowing us to fill all three turkey tags in less that one day of hunting.

By noon the snow had melted, the weather warmed and after a few quick photos, we were ready to enjoy the “Good” to celebrate while enjoying another great meal at Antler Ridge Lodge and to reminisce about another of our great South Dakota hunting experience.