Well, I went out this morning. I'm back home. I'm clean, my hunting clothes are clean (in the wash) but there was no bird to clean. Here's the story.
As I stated above, Midewin is huge and they make you hun the East side of the property on even days and the west side on odd days. On the east side there are 11 units and they are all roughly 1 square mile. There are only a couple places to park so you are most likely going to have to take a bike or plan on walking a long way.
I had my bike and I got there as early as possible (4 am) so I could get back to my spot well before sunrise. I met a guy signing in who was taking his boys out for their first turkey hunt. We talked a little about where we were headed and I wished them luck. They were gone by the time I came back to my car, but I hope they pulled at least one turkey out between their 3 tags.
I had a 3+ mile bike ride back into my spot and apart from tripping over a branch hidden in the grass when I got off my bike, which cause a slow-motion fall to the ground ending up with my left hand and knee in a mud puddle, the trip in was un-eventful.
I skirted the far side of a field that had been soybeans last year and got set up near the corner of the back 10 acres of the field that is kind of screened off by a line of mature trees about 20 yards thick. I was on the side that stuck out in the field and I set up my decoys along the field edge that backs up to a creek. I always try to put my decoys on the edge, because they look so fake out in a bare field. I want to have some vegetation under them,
As the sun was rising, I sat calling a little and I hear gobbles (probably 3-4 birds) off to the best between 1/4 and 1/2 mile. I was thinking about making a move, but I figured I could wait to see if anything was roosted near me. And then I heard the most fake sounding gobble ever. It was right over my left should and it sounded like it was about 20 yards away. I have a gobble call and I have never taken it out because it sounds so fake. And this gobble call sounded even worse.
I immediately think that there must be another hunter how came in across the field and set up on the other side of the row of trees that screens off this part of the field. Then I hear a little bit of clucking that sounds real, but I am mostly focused on the gobbles I hear off to the east. Right about sunset, I hear wings flapping right behind me over my left shoulder. I assume it is a hen from the clucking I had heard. about 20 minutes later I hear BOOM.
I sneak through the screen of trees behind me and look out into the bigger portion of the field and about 150 yards south of me is a hunter picking a tom up off the ground next to his full strut decoy.
It was way to windy for me to be hearing him making any calls. So that leads me to the conclusion, that I had set up within 20 yards of that tom (who must have been terrible at Gobbling). My calling probably woke him up and when he saw that full strut tom decoy, he flew down and headed right for him. Perhaps if I had my Jake decoy out in the field he would have come my way first, although we will never know.
With that all said and done, I started considering moving east to try to set up on on of those toms, but BOOM. There must have been another hunter who had set up to the east and he got one of those toms on the ground. By 7:30 a.m. I had heard my last gobble for the day. Although it was so windy there might have been more calls I just couldn't hear them.
I did a little hiking or still hunting hoping I would see some toms out in the fields that I could try to stalk, but I think with the wind they were sticking to the trees.
I'll be going out for a couple hours tomorrow. There are only 8 tags, so hopefully that means there are only 6 hunters still trying to get a turkey.
