dustinwise

I feel really comfortable out to 40 yards with a hevi choke tube and hevi magnum blend. I can still put enough hevi shot in a turkeys head at 55 yards using a lead sled and paper target; not so sure about it though leaning up against a tree in the turkey woods!

I shot this deer the last day of the late season, December 14. A friend of mine called the night before saying we should go this last day and give it another try. We had previously hunted the first day of the late season, walking what felt like about 30 miles in blowing snow and wind chills around zero degrees in some hilly canyon type ground. Do to prior engagements (a wife, 3 year old, and 6 month old) I didn't get another chance to go until this last day. On the morning of the 14th we headed out early to do some scouting. We headed down a two trail road not traveled that often and saw two bucks and some does run over a small ridge in some tall CRP grass. This grass is 3-5 ft tall in spots so it makes great cover when they bed down. We stayed put and let them bound off without spooking them too much. We drove around to the south side of this field, over a mile away to try and sneak in on foot from that side. My friend's wife had a doe license so we thought that she may have an opportunity for a doe as well. We started into the field slowly glassing along the way when a third buck showed up from behind a small rise walking north into the tall CRP grass like he owned the place. He was the biggest of the three. We stood motionless and watched him until we lost him in the tall grass which was over a quarter of a mile away. After that we snuck in further and started walking in on our hands and knees until we thought we were within range of the first two bucks. When we started looking around we realized that we were within 30 yards of a bedded doe. We were downwind of her as the wind was blowing out of the northwest. We contemplated on what we should do because she had spotted us and knew that once we moved she would bust out of the CRP field possibly taking one of the first two bucks we had seen or maybe both of them. Luck was on our side and she jumped up and ran east by herself. Now we questioned where the other 3 bucks were, the two we had saw earlier and the third one which I ended up shooting later. We slowly made our way to the rise where we had saw the 2 bucks run over earlier that morning. When we crested the rise there stood 2 does looking straight at us about 150 yards out. Great, we just knew we were busted. We stood there for about 5 minutes and the does started feeding again but on occasion would look up at us. We made the decision to wait on my friend's wife to catch up with us so she could take a shot at one of the does and in turn may scare up a buck or at least get one of them to stand up so we could locate him. We stood on the rise for another 45 minutes like fence posts until my friend's wife showed up ready to fill her doe tag. She crept in another 50 yards to get set up for her shot, keep in mind this grass is 3-5ft tall so the deer did not see or hear her crawl in further. She shot at one, missed, and then dropped the same doe on the second shot. No bucks, what the heck we thought, where could they have went? We started to spread out and fan the area like pheasant hunters to see if we could get at least one of the bucks to reveal his location. After about 30 minutes of this we were about ready to give up when I saw the third buck stand up and lay right back down out of the corner of my eye. This buck was 150 yards south of where my friend's wife had shot her doe and he did not budge an inch after the two shots she had made, something short of a miracle. We made the choice to try and get closer to him so I could get a clear shot. We could not see him after he laid back down but had pin pointed his location. My damn shooting sticks would only allow me to take a kneeling shot since they were not long enough for me to take a standing shot. I was not going to take a shot at him without them as bad as I was shaking. I did not in any way want to wound this magnificent animal. We crawled within 40 yards of him and saw his antlers. He was laying with his head flat on the ground and I did not want to shoot him laying on the ground because of the chance of wounding him and my own ethics. My friend was behind me and proceeded to yell and clap his hands to get him to stand up. He stood up and I pulled the trigger sending a 150 grain 300 WSM bullet into his heart. We had no idea that he was that big until we came upon him. We were ecstatic and I am still on cloud nine. What this buck had done when we first saw him disappear was he just simply laid right down and hadn't moved an inch. What is even crazier is we snuck by him on the way into those does. The disheartening fact about this hunt is all the pickup tracks through the CRP. Like my friend said, "these deer are not used to seeing people on foot," and I totally agree with him. Road hunters would have missed him by 3/4 of a mile and that sure seems to be the case in this area. He thought he was hid and lady luck was on our side that morning, definitely a morning I will never forget. To top this story off I drew this license as a second choice!

Glass works better on windy days because they tend to run louder than slate. I think it is easier to do soft yelps, clucks, and purrs on a slate. If you are like most turkey hunters you will end up with both. Glass calls have to be conditioned on the surface if they are not already and you may want to try a couple of different strikers becasue they will all give you a different tone. Don't have a white knuckled grip on the call, let the call gently rest on the ends of your fingertips and you will get better sound. Good luck; most importantly practice calling and don't be afraid to call.

He scored 195 gross. I am still waiting to let him dry for the official B & C score. He had a bunch of deductions for broken points. He could easily be missing an additional 20 inches from busted points; but that is just speculation.

$43 for Winchester Supremes at Cabelas for 10 shells. Hevi Shot Mag Blends online can be bought for $24 with a $5 rebate so they are actually cheaper. You sure won't find me shooting shells that cost $4.30 a piece plus taxes; especially when they don't pattern very well out of 3 differnet shotguns that I own.

I sure won't be changing what I am doing either.....thank you as well.

Wow $30, that is the highest I have ever heard of! The last one's I bought I got through Cabela's for a little over $20; hevi-shot also has a $5 rebate on a box up to two boxes. I use the Magnum blend 3 1/2's and have found absolutley nothing that compares to the pattern I get with them; I am also using a hevi choke tube. I have patternend them at 55 yards and feel like I could easily take a gobbler down but I would not like to have to shoot that far. I have patterned federals, winchesters, kent, remington and spent a lot of money doing it as well, nothing even comes close to the pattern with hevi shot or the penetration that you will get with these loads. I am shooting these through a SBE II. Make sure that if you are using these loads that you are not shooting them through a stock full choke as they can bulge the barrel of you shotgun. Hope this helps.

Decoys in the fall; do you use them or not? What kind do you use for Jake and Tom winter flocks, mixed groups, and hen groups?

Thanks for the advice. I was thinking ground blind so I can start taking my oldest boy who is 3 now with me into the turkey woods and he could wiggle around in the blind with some of his toys and of course learn a little about the turkey hunt at the same time!

Are turkeys really oblivious to ground blinds? I have read this but have never tried it in setup. Can a person just throw out his blind the same morning of the hunt and expect turkeys not to notice the change in sceneary? Will they work in an open field?