1st Annual All-Ladies Turkey hunt!

[CouesWhitetail]

1st annual all-ladies turkey hunt

 

Most of you know that for years I have been teaching hunting classes (along with my friend Linda Dightmon) at the Becoming an Outdoorswoman workshops which are held three times a year in AZ and sponsored by the AZ Wildlife Federation. As an extension of teaching those hunting classes, I have been taking some of the ladies out hunting. We started out with squirrel hunts on the San Carlos and now have moved into bigger animals. This was the first year I took a group of ladies turkey hunting. We decided to go to NM since they have over the counter turkey tags there. I haven't spent much time in NM and everyone was relying on me to find them turkeys, so I was a bit worried about finding some good turkey hunting spots. Luckily there were several generous people that shared some great turkey hunting locations with me. Lance Crowther, Jeff Fell, and David Stone gave me lots of great information and I can’t thank them enough! Jay Scott was also very helpful with turkey hunting advice.

 

I went out a month before the hunt and scouted out some spots and was feeling comfortable that we could get on some turkeys. They were gobbling pretty good already in March.

 

 

 

 

We were also very privileged to have a friend of mine, Bill Whalen, offer us his house to stay in during the hunt. Wow, I couldn’t believe how things were coming together for this hunt! Here are some pictures of the house we stayed in…..quite a nice place, don’t you think?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There were to be 5 of us hunting, with three of us showing up on Tuesday and the rest coming in a couple days later. I was the only one of the group who had successfully hunted turkey before and many of the ladies had never even tried hunting turkeys before. One lady had previously only squirrel hunted and another had never hunted anything at all. So this was her first-ever hunt and just a few weeks before this she was out with her husband buying a shotgun, sighting it in, getting all her camo and other gear.

 

The season opened on a Wednesday, so Tuesday evening I went with Debbie and Bonnie to scout a spot Lance told me about. Lo and behold as we come around a corner in the dirt road we spot a couple toms strutting in front of a group of hens. Woo-hoo!! Can we really be so lucky? Well, we had our calls with us and so just for fun we started calling to them from inside the car. One gobbler headed our way immediately but got a little spooked when he was faced with my Jeep in the middle of the road. But he just went back to his hens and we kept calling and making them gobble back. We played with them for about half an hour before moving up the road. As we drove I could still see them just downhill from the road. We continued on past them and went scouting some other areas. On our way back, just before dark, I stopped the Jeep at a spot where we could walk into the area where I thought the turkeys had headed. On the topo map, it looked like a good canyon for roosting and for listening for birds after dark. So we walked in and suddenly I realized there were turkeys right in front of us. We froze and watched the tom strutting and the hens moving around for maybe 10 mins before they flew into some roost trees just in front of us, while some flew across the canyon to roost. We waited until dark and then I went back to get some turkey decoys from the Jeep. We set up the decoys and planned out our sitting locations so we could come in there in the dark in the morning.

 

Opening morning we awoke to find it raining lightly outside. It was a pleasant hike in the rain to our spot. We set up as quietly as we could and waited for the turkeys to start talking on the roost. The gobbler sounded off along with several hens calling in the trees nearby. I called with some light yelping before they flew down, but after they were on the ground I increased the volume and frequency of my yelps. The turkeys headed right to us and I had set it up so Debbie would have the shot. Bonnie and I sat farther back and hoped to call a tom over for Debbie to shoot. The hens headed our way and walked right up to the decoys, but the toms stayed back behind a couple oak trees strutting in a nice patch of grass. Debbie didn’t have a clear shot. The toms strutted in front of her for about half an hour before the hens started moving away. The toms followed but not before one came around the group of trees Debbie was set up in. We had already planned that if the tom came around that way that I would take the shot since there would be no way for Debbie to get turned to face him. As the tom was behind some small trees I put my gun up and took the safety off. He came out in the open and was peering around looking for me. I took the shot and he dropped in his tracks at 25 yards. I jumped up to go grab him since he was flopping around. Bird #1 was on the ground less than an hour into our hunt!! He was a nice tom with a 9 ½ inch beard. Wow, what a morning!

 

 

Amanda (left) and Debbie (right) with Amanda’s opening morning turkey.

 

 

 

Amanda with her turkey.

 

 

 

Close-up of the head of Amanda’s turkey.

 

We could still hear gobblers calling around us, so after we took some photos of my bird, we went out after some more birds. We called in a hen to within 10 yards or so, but she was by herself. We were hearing gobblers all day even though it was very windy. Late in the afternoon we decided to take a break and pluck my bird.

 

 

We had just hung it in a tree when a gobbler sounded off up the ridge from us. So we grabbed our gear and went after him, to no avail. We came back down and plucked the bird and then drove out to some other areas. We didn’t see a a lot of sign so we headed back toward “Pluck Canyon” (where we plucked my bird). On the way we saw some turkeys strutting in the road near a tank. There were at least 3 jakes and one tom along with several hens in that group. We could have shot them from the vehicle, but of course choose not to do that and instead let them walk on by before we quietly got our gear and set-up to call. The jakes and gobbler answered my calls with gusto, but they just wouldn’t come back down the ridge to where we were. I could periodically see them strutting and calling only 100 yards or so up the ridge. But the hens stayed up there and so did they. Eventually we drove on past them and tried to get set-up where they were heading. As we were walking in there I spotted a hen close-by. We crouched down and I held the decoy in front of me. That hen made a beeline for the decoy and came within 5 yards before deciding it was nothing and continuing on through the saddle. We set-up there hoping the hen would be followed by some toms, but no luck.

 

The second morning of the hunt we headed right back to that saddle where the hen had crossed and set up in the pre-dawn darkness. We didn’t know exactly where the turkeys were roosted, but we hoped it was somewhere nearby. We were thrilled to hear a gobbler calling nearby. I tried to call him over to us and it turns out the hen came in close to Bonnie, but the gobbler stayed lower down the ridge out of view. He didn’t call much at all once he was on the ground.

 

We could hear several gobblers calling to the West and so we packed up and drove over there. Every time we moved we would hear more gobblers calling, but we didn’t seem to be getting any closer! Eventually we did get close to some, but they got quiet and it was getting to be late morning. The birds seemed much quieter this morning and the odds of getting a bird that morning seemed to be falling away quickly. We headed down into a drainage where I had heard some calling earlier in the morning and hoped a flock might move through there later in the morning. After sitting there and calling for an hour or more, we decided to go back to the Jeep for lunch. Probably 15 minutes after getting up to leave we hear a gobbler heading down the ridge right toward where we had been set-up! Ack!! What do they say? Patience kills more gobblers than anything? Guess we hadn’t been patient enough. Anyway, we try and sneak back down to get set-up. As we are sneaking I see a couple hens and we stop moving, but they are already spooked. One gobbler sounds off closeby to our right and behind us. We decide to just sit down where we are and hope he will come in. We know there are still gobblers to the left somewhere and I figure Bonnie can set up for them while Debbie can get what comes in from the other direction. I do some light calling and I hear two gobblers call closeby in the drainage to my left. They will either follow the path the hens took or come in behind us a little. Bonnie and I shift to try and cover both angles. I call a little more and expect to see the gobblers at any second. Suddenly I hear a shot from behind me and realize that Debbie must have seen one! Yippee! We turn toward Debbie and she says, “Mine is down, there are two more, shoot one!”. Bonnie turns around and is trying to get a steady off-hand shot at one of them. The two other toms start attacking the one that is down and I try and coach Bonnie through the shot. “Wait until you are steady and have a clear shot.” She doesn’t have anything under her gun to support it and decides it’s not steady enough to take the shot. The gobblers see some of our movement and decide to leave their fallen comrade and head for cover. Wow, talk about excitement!! We had three gobblers running into us. From where Bonnie and I were we couldn’t see them cross behind the pile of downed trees. Luckily, Debbie happened to look that way and see their heads just over the pile of trees. She turned and took a great shot through a tiny opening. The birds were just 15-20 yards away when she shot. With a little more experience, I think Bonnie would have been comfortable with taking a shot at one of the remaining birds, but she had only ever shot her gun with a rest and just wasn’t sure how well she could aim and fire it without one. This was her first hunt ever and I was really impressed with the calm she showed during that moment. I imagine some other hunters might have just started shooting with birds that close. But she showed real poise and discipline at a very exciting time. I think that will serve her well during her future hunts. So we almost had a double on the 2nd morning, but we were happy enough to have gotten one since that morning had been relatively quiet and hard to get on birds. It was about 11:30 am when Debbie shot her turkey. Debbie is an experienced hunter who has taken deer, javelina, and small game, but this was her first turkey! Do you think she is excited?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Debbie (left), Amanda (center) and Bonnie (right) posing with Debbie’s gobbler.

 

 

These birds were so beautiful, I just can’t resist putting in more photos. We spent a fair amount of time admiring all their colors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Being a biologist, I like to see what the animals are eating (and luckily so did Bonnie and Debbie), so I cut open the gizzard from Debbie’s turkey and found it was full of grass and juniper berries.

 

 

 

That afternoon we checked out a new area and sat a tank. There was a lot of turkey sign, but the turkeys didn’t come into the tank while we were there. We did get to enjoy the birds and squirrels around the water and also a light snow storm.

 

Wow, don't you think Bonnie looks deadly? This is a first-time hunter! Could have fooled me!

 

We spent all-day everyday of the hunt out there hunting. We generally left the house at 4 am and didn’t get back until 8:30 pm. That didn’t leave much time to eat and sleep before getting up at 3 am again! I had actually planned to only hunt mornings and evenings and just go back to the house and relax during the mid-day. However, these ladies were dedicated and whenever there was a choice to be made about continuing to hunt or taking a break, they always opted for hunting. Over the next couple days we had all kinds of close encounters with turkeys, but just couldn’t make it happen. We did stumble up on this dead bull elk. He is a nice 5x6 with an additional 5 small non-typical points.

 

 

Bonnie posing with the dead elk.

 

 

The night before the last morning of the hunt, we roosted at least three gobblers in “Pluck Canyon”. So on the last morning I took Bonnie with me to set up on one side of the canyon and sent Kathy across the canyon to sit in a blind some of ladies had made previously. As Bonnie and I hiked uphill in the dark, we realized there was a flashlight shining at us from the woods in front of us. Then we realized there must be another hunter in there and they were set up right where we were headed. Ugh….Oh well, there wasn’t much to do about it, so we just set up where we were and hoped for the best. We were thankful the guy signaled us, rather than waiting for us to walk up there on top of him. The gobblers we had roosted were fairly quiet on the roost, but a couple others further up the canyon (closer to the other hunters) were calling loudly. I did some calling to try and get the gobblers to come my way but it sounded like they were going up the canyon. Suddenly, we heard a shot from across the canyon where Kathy was supposed to be set up. I fumbled through my pack to get the radio and turn it on. We waited several anxious minutes before we heard “I got him!”. Woo-hoo!!! I was elated! We packed up our stuff and headed over to help her out.

 

When we got there she was motioning that there were birds nearby so we started getting into hunting mode again. We could hear several hens and gobbler making all kinds of calls nearby. We tried to call them down to us, but had no luck. I took Bonnie and tried to loop around to get above them. We didn’t get too far before realizing there were two more gobblers coming uphile toward us. We setup to get a shot at one of them, but it seemed like those other hunters moved in and the birds stopped coming our way. We started getting paranoid about which calls were birds and which were hunters, so we went further East and tried to work a gobbler in the bottom of a canyon there. Again it seemed like we heard some hunters calling nearby and then the gobbler stopped calling. That was disappointing since it was the last morning and we had just spent several days in there without any other hunters. Oh well, everyone has the right to be there, so we just packed it up and went back to help Kathy skin her bird. It had been a great morning with birds gobbling better than the last few days. It was too bad we had to leave that morning, they were gobbling good!

 

I think Kathy’s bird was the biggest of the three we had taken during this hunt. It had about 1 inch spurs and looked like it was bigger bodied. My guess is it weighed around 20-21 lbs. Kathy said the bird came right into the jake decoy she had set up. Kathy didn’t have any calls with her, but had imitated a hen yelp with her voice a few times before this gobbler came in. This gobbler was all alone, but it strutted around the decoy before she took the shot. This was Kathy’s first turkey and wow, what a fine trophy!

 

Kathy (left) and Amanda (right) holding Kathy’s big gobbler.

 

 

 

Kathy with her gobbler after it had been skinned out.

 

 

 

The spurs on Kathy’s bird were about 1 inch long.

 

 

Well, we certainly had a great hunt. Unfortunately one of the ladies wasn’t feeling well and so she had to leave early and hardly got to hunt. But of the remaining four, three of us got gobblers and one had passed on a shot at one at 15-20 yards. So I would say this was a very successful hunt!! The ladies showed some real dedication by hunting all day, everyday in rain, snow, heat and wind. I was very impressed with all of them and can’t wait to do it again next year!

[bowhunter4life]

wow that was very impressive! I think we may need a new sponser " lady's guide service" those gobblers are very impressive and also the dedication you all gave. thanks for a great story and pictures!

mike

[Guest 300ultramag.]

good write up! that TOM is huge....

 

 

Hey Amanda,

u ran into 1 of my friends on ur hunt. (jeff) He had nothing but good things to say about u...he also told me u were hittin the sticks pretty hard.... Man what a small world Considering I only have a handful of huntin buddies!

 

Beau

[DUG]

Congrats to you girls. Great story and pictures!

[Coues 'n' Sheep]

Congrats on a very successful trip Amanda!!! Looks like it was a big time for all!!

 

BTW.... what is the P/U head rules for NM?? Did you GPS that head??

[CouesWhitetail]

good write up! that TOM is huge....

 

 

Hey Amanda,

u ran into 1 of my friends on ur hunt. (jeff) He had nothing but good things to say about u...he also told me u were hittin the sticks pretty hard.... Man what a small world Considering I only have a handful of huntin buddies!

 

Beau

 

 

Wow, that is a small world. I never got to talk with the hunter(s) that was in there with us, but one of the ladies did. Must have been him I guess. Wish I had a chance to talk with him. It seemed like the morning after we met him, that he left us alone to hunt our spot even though he knew the birds were there. I don't know where he hunted that morning, but we all thought it was very thoughtful of him to let us work the birds that morning. Tell him thanks for us. He said he was camped in the area, but I never saw his camp. I am assuming he got a bird after we left. I bet he was glad to see us all leave!

 

Have him email me. I would like to know how many times we were calling back and forth to him that last morning! We kept thinking we were moving away and leaving him with other birds, but then it would sound like he was going after the same birds we were.

 

Amanda

[CouesWhitetail]

Congrats on a very successful trip Amanda!!! Looks like it was a big time for all!!

 

BTW.... what is the P/U head rules for NM?? Did you GPS that head??

 

 

 

Lance tells me you are not allowed to pick up heads even if they have no skin on them. I GPSd the head figuring I would give it to Lance as a thank you for sharing his spot, but he told me you can't pick them up. Ugh...

 

Amanda

 

[tjhunt2]

That was a great story and congratulations to you and all the ladies from Peg and I. After Peg read your story she is so ready to try and get her first bird. Sounded like you all had a great time and that was so nice of you to put that hunt together for the ladies. Thanks for sharing with us all.

 

TJ

[Coach]

Great job, and great story! Thanks for sharing it. Man that is one big turkey!!!

[Snapshot]

Those are great birds, pics and story. Sounds like you all had an excellent time. Thanks for sharing!

[Basser15]

That's an awesome trip! Congrats to you and the other successful hunters.

[Red Rabbit]

What a great time that must have been had by you ladies. And a nice house in which to stay to boot! Bet you will have lotsa takers next year if you do it again. Are you going e-mail this story to all of the participants of BOW to keep some fires burning?

 

Doug~RR

[willhunt4coues]

Those are some great turkeys. Congrats to all of the ladies. I think you all have done better than some of us guys.

[Lance]

Awesome Awesome Awesome! Awesome write up! Awesome pictures! Awesome hunt!

 

Thanks for giving me a day by day blow of the hunt via cell phone! almost felt like I was there! Like a kid at Christmas, I looked forward to your call every day to get the next report!

 

I wish you could have filled the other two tags, but maybe now I can go shoot a couple. I hope they are still talking by the time I make it over there!

 

Way to get it done Amanda! You Gals are Lethal!

 

Lance

[Guest 300ultramag.]

good write up! that TOM is huge....

 

 

Hey Amanda,

u ran into 1 of my friends on ur hunt. (jeff) He had nothing but good things to say about u...he also told me u were hittin the sticks pretty hard.... Man what a small world Considering I only have a handful of huntin buddies!

 

Beau

 

 

Wow, that is a small world. I never got to talk with the hunter(s) that was in there with us, but one of the ladies did. Must have been him I guess. Wish I had a chance to talk with him. It seemed like the morning after we met him, that he left us alone to hunt our spot even though he knew the birds were there. I don't know where he hunted that morning, but we all thought it was very thoughtful of him to let us work the birds that morning. Tell him thanks for us. He said he was camped in the area, but I never saw his camp. I am assuming he got a bird after we left. I bet he was glad to see us all leave!

 

Have him email me. I would like to know how many times we were calling back and forth to him that last morning! We kept thinking we were moving away and leaving him with other birds, but then it would sound like he was going after the same birds we were.

 

Amanda

 

 

 

Will do! Im trying to persuade him to selling one of his L/O bull elk tags to me this year.... We shall see!