Close with a bow! Boss Hen won.

[dbHunterNY]

So I had a couple close calls with my bow this weekend:

Saturday morning -

I was in a stand on my parent's farm and knew a flock was passing through every morning. Despite the high winds I hunkered down on stand. I heard the flock enter the woods and they were headed my way. Well they never made it to me, worked on by out of sight and headed to a corn field.

Sunday afternoon -

On stand at a different farm. about 15 yards into the woods on stand at the end of a lush green ag field. terrain bottle necks into the long field that's about 60 yards wide at most. slight wind at that time and a light drizzle of rain.

whole flock entered the field silent and out of range. i had no calls at the time so used my voice to call in a few of the hens in tow. a kee-kee, followed by some clucking and purring bought two within about 11-12 yards and just behind some dead pine limbs. i did another series and they started calling back to me but stayed put. i had the bow up at the ready with the pin on her. i then noticed the whole flock had turned and was heading my way.

apparently the boss hen was still in the woods across the corner of the field and didn't like the direction her whole flock was headed in. she started to make some soft calls as if to say "what are you all doing?". i then did another series changing cadence and pitch to sound like more than one lost turkey. the closest hen took one step and had one more step to go, before i could send an arrow.

well the boss hen calls to shots. at that time, the boss hen sent out some aggressive yelps to get everyone's attention and followed it with a series of assembly call yelps. the closest hen and others turned on a dime and proceeded to continue out of range and back into the woods the way they came. tried calling some more using kee-kee runs and with all the stops. no series of calling, my best with my natural voice to date, could bring them back.

[shickoff]

It's all good . . .

Sounds like a great fall turkey hunt, man. I'll tell ya, that boss hen will beat us 9-10 times. Like you say, she knows how to steer her flock out of harm's way. We had a great scatter earlier this year in New York, turkeys in all directions; all over in the woods. She somehow set up and called them in from both sides and all around us, away from our calling, then moved off until they vaporized. Still plenty of season left, eh . . . keep us posted! S.