WILD TURKEY BOWHUNT IN TENNESSEE
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May 4 - Day 2

Setting Up To Hunt A Strut Zone

MORNING: May 4 - We walked to the blind, set up the two decoys and waited for the early morning gobbles. The two gobbles there were would have gone unnoticed except for my Pro Ears. 

In response to Fred's random calling around 7:00, we heard a deeper than usual sounding yelp down the hill on the field side. Fred yelped back. The deep, raspy yelp got closer. From the sound of the turkey's voice we thought it might be a jake. I saw a dark turkey body in the trees. It continued to yelp and when I saw it clearly it was a big Eastern hen. Everything in the woods is soaking wet from the rain and the hen looked very dark colored.

Fred yelped at the hen and they went back and forth. The hen had its eye on the decoys and finally stepped out of the trees. The first picture I took was at 7:27. The hen walked in front of the blind and stopped 10 yards from the decoys. 

Making a variety of vocalizations the hen watched the two taxidermied decoys for 15 minutes. I was videoing today and I got some swell footage of the hen making a variety of sounds and postures at the decoys.

A gobbler sounded off from the field area and got louder as it continued to gobble. Then the hen did what hens sometimes do, it shook its feathers and walked down the hill in the direction of the gobbler. That was the end of the gobbles.

Two hours later I saw a second hen in the woods. It  walked on by without noticing the decoys. We left the equipment  in the blind and walked to the farm house to eat  lunch. Then we had to drive to town for me to upload to the net. A hen was in the field when we walked out of the house.

AFTERNOON: We went out early. Saw nothing. Heard nothing.

We left the blind on the ridge and will hunt there again in the morning. If we don't get some gobbler action we will relocate. 

Back at the farm house after dark a neighbor (Tom) stopped in to visit with us. We had an interesting conversation and found out that this afternoon Tom had seen 3 gobblers strutting in the field an hour before dark. You can bet there will a blind back in that field tomorrow afternoon.

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