BOWHUNT FOR THE FLORIDA OSCEOLA
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Day 4 - The Shark Tooth Gobbler

Yesterday, when I returned from hunting, David Mills 6 year old daughter Faith gave me a good luck present, a shark tooth that she had found earlier in the day. (She has quite a nice collection of them.) I put it in my camo pants pocket and told her it made me feel lucky.

This is a picture of my Double Bull ground blind setup.

Several turkey sounding birds landed loudly in the trees around my blind. I cracked a small slit to look our through and looked around. They were higher than I could look without opening the window wider, which I wasn't about to do and risk spooking them.

At 8:45 one of the birds dropped off its tree limb and landed by my decoys. A buzzard.

I took the buzzards picture. Several more buzzards flew down and the original buzzard made a run at a couple of them and the buzzards spread out for quite a ways.

You bet I wanted to get a picture of this and checked them out to see how I could get the most buzzards in the pic. Something about the furthest buzzards made me do a double take. They weren't buzzards!

I blew off the buzzard picture project. The surprise turkey group was 95 yards away and on a course that didn't include walking by me. The This time I used a mouth call, the new Woodhaven Copperhead diaphragm. They liked it.

Five gobblers, in a variety of sizes. None of them was the bomber longbeard I had seen earlier but one had a beard that was super wide. I cut and yelped, picking up the speed of the call. The rangefinder read 44 yards. We were half way there.

Once again the Copperhead talked turkey to the gobblers and they committed. I took the last pic. The rangefinder read 29 yards and I hooked my release on the string loop of my BowTech Patriot.

All 5 of the gobblers shifted to my left and stopped a few steps further than I wanted to shoot. They ogled the hen and jake decoys. I did a kee kee and some very soft yelps. They surged ahead five yards and jammed on the brakes again. I located the wide beard and drew.

I raised up in my seat so I wouldn't hit the bottom part of the blind's window. The arrow went over the wide beard.

But not to worry, the gobbler group held tight. I didn't know what happened but I slipped off my seat and onto my knees in case I had hit the blind's bottom window or one of the window chords. As I knocked an arrow 4 of the birds walked to the right and stopped in the road. My pin settled on the only gobbler left just as he turned to look at the others.

My pin glowed right in the kill zone. The gobbler was standing still. I touched the release's trigger. Pop!

He ran 15 yards, and did the moon walk. Then he dizzily jumped forward into a pile of limbs. Some of the other gobblers ran to the downed one and milled around for a minute or so before leaving.

Once they were gone I stepped out of the blind and went to my 2006 Florida Osceola gobbler, with visions of a 4th Spring Grand Slam dancing in my head. A nearby cypress stump was the right height to take a picture so I set my camera on it, pushed the time delay button, and took my picture.

EQUIPMENT COMMENTS:

• First and foremost the item that made this hunt happen was the new 2006 Copperhead diaphragm from Woodhaven Custom Calls. It sounded great to me and obviously it won over the turkeys too. I like a call that can be soft as well as loud and the Copperhead does just that. 
• Jay Liechty's Grim Reaper Broadheads are super accurate and tough. I used the 1 3/4 inch expandable 3 blade Razor Tip because it makes a big cut and I think that is important for turkeys.
• Once again BowTech Archery did the job for me. This particular bow is the BowTech Patriot and it has really done the job for me on wild hogs, whitetail bucks and does as well as last year's wild turkey grand slam.
• It's become a staple in my archery set up, the Venom Peep Sight System. It's unique color and perfectly shaped and sized eye hole make this self aligning peep sight a big plus for all bowhunting situations.
• The Razor Tip broadheads were on Gold Tip 400 arrows with EZY-Eye yellow wraps fletched with bright yellow feathers from Gateway Feathers and fletched with the Arizona Rim E-Z Fletch carbon fletcher. Jim Fletcher Archery's string loop release, the Flathead, as always made a smooth release. I had to slog through mud and water every day on the way to and from the blind and Bison Wolverine gore tex boots kept my socks and feet dry and gave me excellent traction in the mud. Inside the blind I wore a solid black long sleeve T-shirt, a black face mask of my own design and a black cap.
• And it is important to mention the lucky sharks tooth my friend Faith gave me for today's hunt.

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In Florida we are hunting with David Mills of Zolfo Springs, Florida in Central Florida's Osceola wild turkey country. David is an immediately likable guy and makes you feel at home from the get go.  David has thousands of acres available to hunt Florida Osceolas. He understands this unique species of wild turkey and knows his extensive area like the preverbal back of his hand. David is now part of the Woodhaven Sting Team and is hosting them on this hunt. To contact David about Osceola hunts, bow or shotgun, phone 1-863-990-9087.

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