Having a cameraman out there in the field with me makes is
two times as hard to get on video.
Another person there is generally not a positive since they move and
make noise and I move and make noise. It’s
been two years of trying to get a Turkey with a Bow for TV and it came together
with my great friend Buck Medley on the Teal Ranch in McMullen county.
Buck and I decided to set up a Pop-Up Blind deep in some
cover with 2 alley ways near us and an open pasture just in front of us. We used two decoys to make it happen, one
was a Hen and the other was a Jake.
They, we had hoped, would draw in those territorial Toms in mating
season to our spread. We had several
birds come to our calls. They flew down
from the roost early in the AM hours right in front of us but they were not
interested, they landed and stood still like a statue. They did not move a bit as they surveyed
their surroundings. Then they moved off
and did not care for our offering. Buck
and I stayed on the hunt and let things settle down. We stayed quiet and did not call much. We did not want to overcall which is a major
mistake a lot of people make when they are new at Turkey hunting.
We then had a nice group of Jake’s come in from Left to
Right. This was looking good. He told me to draw back for a shot, a long
shot, about 40 yards. I held the sights
on the Jake I liked and let the arrow fly.
It was a solid hit and the bird went into the woods to the Left of our
pasture. We tracked him down about 75 yards
from the field. That was my first
Turkey with a bow.
Special thanks to Fred and “ The Bow Shop” in San Antonio
and Mathews Bows for sponsoring our TV show.
We could not have made it happen without them.
Okay, with that ----Successful Hunt Completed ! Buck said, “ Let’s get a Big Tom this
afternoon”. That’s exactly what we did.
We eased back into the Pop-Up Blind and stayed super quiet
for what felt like 1 hour. Then Buck
began his amazing calling. Buck is an
amazing outdoorsman; he has been on many hunting shows and killed many turkey
with a bow. I was with a great hunter.
We began calling.
Nothing !! We were there for 2
hours and nothing. I was getting
anxious. Finally, we had Toms gobbling
back at us.
They were behind us, and they seemed hung up, not coming
any closer to us. They would gobble back
to his yelp of a hen call but not come in to our spread. We were tenacious and kept on our plan to
not “over-call” but show these Tom’s that we were a group of Hens and Jakes and
they should come in and investigate.
Finally, the returned calls from the Tom’s got louder. My heart was pounding since they were getting
closer and closer and coming in from behind us from our Right. It was awesome. This was it !!!
They were not strutting like the Jakes when they came in these
Tom’s were closed up and were looking closely at the decoys. Buck said draw back and stay in back of the
blind, don’t let them see you. I did
just that. I moved my body to the back
of the blind, took a knee and put my bow down low and made the draw-back low in
the blind. I then raised up slowly and
got the peep on the Tom’s. Okay I was
drawn back but would I get the shot.
Time would tell.
This was it. Do I get
the shot ? There were 3 of them. Which one should I target? Do I have time to work this out? I am drawn back, Buck is videoing the
birds. “No Pressure” this is what it is all about. Buck said “Take the Shot”, Take the Shot” !
I let the arrow fly and hit him in the lower part of the
neck, a great shot. He was flapping
around on the ground and I was out of the blind and had him by the legs within
60 seconds. I wore light weight camo gloves with my
trigger finger cut out just for this opportunity. It was an amazing day. Two turkey with the bow in one day and Fried
Turkey Strips coming tonight.
Cooking Wild Turkey:
Rio Grande Turkey have very dense breast . They use a lot of mussle mass to Fly and to
Open Up a Strut for the mating ritual. I
therefore like to cut the meat into strips, marinade it for 24 hours in a Cajun
marinade, to give it some “Flavor” and deep fry it in my Fry Daddy that I use
to fry fish. It comes out great ! The fact that you cut it in strips before marinating
it makes more surface area for the marinade to do its work.
Buck and I plan to do some Offshore Spear Fishing out of
Port Aransas Texas next for some monster Amberjacks, Tuna and Ling. Stay tuned, that’s coming up in just a few
weeks.
Thanks for your time today and “I’ll See You in The Wide
Open Outdoors !!
Dave
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