FINALLY
What a long frustrating season but we officially saved the year! On Saturday I talked to dad to make our final day’s plan. We both knew where we needed to be and we both knew it could be a long day. Our plan is probably what our plan should have been all along. We decided we would sit at a pinch point in the field and after scouting a couple weeks ago we knew if we sat dead center in the middle that it would be a 6o yd shot to anything that came thru this pinch point, at most. We knew there were no birds roosting close to this spot and we would have to wait for them to arrive but still we arrived early to make sure we didn’t spook anything. Well, was this a bad sign. As I’m leading thru the darkness I am running my headlamp in red mode and I catch eyes looking at me in the grass ahead. I stop and switch to white light only to then realize that less than 10 yds away is a skunk! I stop dad and we both laugh. Seems fitting the way our season has been going that we would run into a skunk and probably get sprayed. Apparently, our laughter was loud enough that the skunk knew something was up and took off in the same direction we were heading. Luckily for us this was the only time we saw Mr. Le Pew. Now setup in our spot it was a waiting game.
As the sun rose we hear zero gobbles. However, shortly after 6 am we get a text photo from my buddy Joe who is hunting with his son in Southern Iowa, of a tom strutting about 100 yds out. With an encouraging reply back it wasn’t 15 mins and we receive a picture of a dead tom! Excitement for us even though it wasn’t our success it was till a good friend dropping the hammer on a tough season!
As the morning progresses we finally see life around 7:30 and it’s a coyote. If we weren’t already carrying enough gear i’d really suggest we add a rifle to the mix for situations just like this. I let out a couple yelps and here this bugger came in. At 90 yds something felt off to him and he broke off into the timber like he was stuck by lightning. Funny to watch but sad we didn’t get a shot at him. Shortly after 8 am I glance up and spot 3 turkeys in the neighbors food plot. Right away I thought it was 3 Jakes but as the camera zooms in there is a lone tom in the group of 3! Awesome. I make a yelp and they look and slowly start heading to the fence. As they are feeding our way they suddenly stop, crouch and turn to head the opposite direction! WHAT IN THE WORLD SPOOKED THEM. That’s when we spot em! Our group of Jakes coming over the hill directly at us. Clearly these boys have been an issue for the Tom and 2 Jakes. As they snuck off in the opposite direction the Jakes continued their path towards us we got ready. Dad looked at me and said we are shooting two of these guys. As they are working in prepared for my shot. Dad was preparing for his. At 37 yds the group stopped and broke up enough that dad and I could coordinate a bird to each shoot. 1, 2, 3 BOOM. At the same time we shot and 2 birds drop like they were hit with hammers! We had successfully saved our season! sure they are only Jakes but wow… you can’t imagine how happy both of us were at that moment! You would have thought we had shot world records! We went from zero’s to heroes on the last day of the season. Okay that’s not very accurate but still, filling 1/2 our tags for the year was definitely huge!
Thanks for following the blog this year and hopefully you got a good laugh or even better if you learned something from our mistakes