Wild Turkey Hunting is new to me, but I hope to be doing it for a long time . I tried to remember everything that I watched on TV from the informative and entertaining wild turkey hunting shows, but the turkeys were a bit smarter than I thought.

      Wild turkey hunting of the first morning proved that the turkeys were smarter for sure,  as all I seen was a lone hen. On the second day I used my handheld gps to find my wild turkey Hunting  blind that I left up over night and got comfy. Later that morning, after early attempts to lure a  wiley bird in, with my amateur wild turkey hunting  calling, I settled   into my camo  blind and took a little snooze. I remembered from TV that turkeys will not be looking for hens so much in the late morning. Then around 11:00 a.m. three gobblers snuck up behind my ground blind at about 100 yards. I tried to call them in closer. Like a rookie hunter that I was I stuck my wild turkey hunting  call out the open window of my blind and spooked the all three. I tried calling them back for about 30 minutes to no avail. Figuring that was my last chance at wild turkey hunting this season, as that Illinois law only allows hunting until 1:00 p.m. I slowly started to pack up my calls, binoculars, snacks and water into my  handy vest. In between packing I would make a few calls to the turkeys that I spooked.

   At about 12:30 I was almost packed, when a lone  bird gobbled about what I thought to be 30-40 yards behind my blind. I knew I had to be 30 to 40 yards he was so very close! My blind was backed up to a huge  fallen tree, so I did not have the back window open and I couldn’t see this last chance at wild turkey hunting. I ever so carefully peeled the  noisy  Velcro window back just to get a peek. There he was the biggest  feathered  gobbler  that I was ever close to, while wild turkey hunting, in full strut! I couldn’t do much but watch until he came around to the side window of my blind, that was open. Even then he was too close to stick out my shotgun that was full of 3 1/2 inch shells. It must have been my lucky day ,as he caught a glimpse of my 2 lifelike decoys and turned his head in their direction enough to take aim and shoot. I did and I had my first  success at wild turkey  hunting with 10 minutes left to hunt. After packing up all my gear,I wanted to make only one trip back to my truck.It was then that I wished I had an ATV to carry out my gear and my awesome feathered trophy.            

          Yes I am hooked. Every day I relive my Wild Turkey Hunting experience at least 10 times,and can’t wait until the fall season to try again.If I never get another trophy, I’ll never forget my first wild turkey hunting time in the field.

Thank you for your interest ,  T.Smola                         contact info at              turkeyfinder @comcast.net

T.Smola