First shotgun turkey hunt - my archery turkey hunt last year was too embarrassingly fruitless to document - this time in the White Mountains of Arizona. This is a draw hunt because we don't have many turkeys in Arizona, period. Luckily, Unit 1 is one of the exceptions but the report was that all of the toms already had hens and were going quiet after flydown.
We arrived to high winds and snow flurries Wednesday night, set up tents, then I drove around 2 tracks until 9:30pm trying to elicit a shock gobble to no avail.
Thursday morning was the complete opposite: everything I tried between 4:30-5:25am drew a shock gobble - hen yelp, coyote howl, owl hoots, even slamming my door - many times from 4 or 5 different toms.All of the calling stopped from every place I tried by 5:30. I checked areas until 10 then I settled on a good looking spot (at least to me) for opening morning and spent the day goofing off with my oldest son, BIL and step dad at camp.
Friday morning was completely quiet. I couldn't buy a shock gobble anywhere, including the nice 2 track with tracks all over that I'd already traveled down a mile. I panicked and hauled my Tundra all over heck trying to hear one bird as light was coming on. I finally drove to one spot I'd seen the day before with a good seep, silent like everywhere else, but I jumped out and grabbed my shotgun and slate call. I left my pack, bladder, decoys, extra shells and everything else in the truck. Blind luck smiled on me after walking for about 5 minutes - nine birds with 2 nice toms of the side of the 2 track. They busted me when I tried to cut them off through the dry vegetation and took off running. I followed for a half hour, hearing an occasional gobble. I decided to head over the canyon top they seemed to be circling until I heard a gobble close. Four jakes were dogging the flock from a respectful distance when I spotted them all. I crawled on hands and knees to within 50 yards. The gobbler was a really nice tom, but he had hens bunched all around. I pulled out my slate call and yelped - gobbles erupted first from the tom, then from the 4 jakes in unison. I kept calling softly and the jakes turned my direction - then the lead hen would yelp and they'd turn back. The flock was leaving but the jakes came to investigate my call - 20 yards so I could see their beards plainly but they were too tightly bunched to risk a shot, so I just kept still, shotgun aimed. They circled some trees to follow the flock over a downed fenceline and I waited on the last jake, who was distant enough from the others for me to drop the hammer at 45 yards. He popped up over a log just as I squeezed the trigger, so my hit was low but dropped him anyway. He was flapping and I lost sight of him when my gun jammed trying to eject the shell. Took me a couple frantic minutes to find him when I reached the fence - he blended in with the burned out logs and stumps. Would love to shoot a big, fat longbeard someday but happy as could be with my jake.
Couldn't wait to get back to camp to show him off.
Nobody will confuse my pictures with those of MTMiller's - my camera died and had to use my cell phone - but I might be hooked on turkey. Hopefully I can draw a tag next year.
