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As many of you may know the Fort Bragg QDMA hosted a youth hunt for kids ages 10-15 who's fathers were currently deployed over seas fighting for our freedom. The QDMA guys did a whole lot of work and put a lot of time and effort into making this hunt possible. Not knowing a whole lot about turkeys they did some research and recruited one of the best turkey hunters and callers I've ever had the pleasure to meet. Mr Stumpjumper himself. Boys first of all let me tell you, that man can not only call a bird but he knows his turkeys. He in turn gathered up 4 other turkey hunters from the area and we all went to Fort Bragg to try and call in a bird for one of these kids. I had the pleasure of being one of the individuals that got to go to Fort Bragg and participate, along with another member of DHC QuackwackerNC, and Bruce Randall himself, maker of cutt-n-run calls. for any of you that have seen the pictures of stumps osage pot call, it sounds even better than it looks :thumbsup: now i'm gonna talk a little bit about the hunt...
Friday afternoon myself and stump arrived at Fort Bragg in order to go check out the area that I was going to hunt. upon first arrival there were a few turkey tracks out on the dirt road. This being a pretty good sign we decided to head to the woods and veer off in the direction of a nearby food plot. the weather man was predicting rain for the next day so we figured the birds would wanna be out in the field and out of the woods where the would feel more secure. so down into the woods we went looking for turkey sign and it was NOT present. by the look of all them tracks out on the road the woods should have been tore up. but instead we found no sign down in the woods at all nor did we find any out on the food plot. after a couple hours of not really finding any sign we decided that our best bet is to go to the area where we THINK the birds are roosting at and listen. we decided to spread out up and down the road about 500 meters apart in order to cover as much ground. after listening for about an hour or so stump gives me a call and tells me that he just had 2 toms come by him headed towards the area we thought they were roosting which was about 300 meters into the woods in an area that was off limits to hunting. knowing that all them tracks were all over the road we figured we'd be best suited to set up close to where he was the next morning.
Saturday morning we got out and set up in the blind right at about 630 or so. and little daniel whom is 10 years old was going to try to kill his first turkey. after being there for about an hour and half daniel is getting kind of impatient. i had been hitting several sweet young yelps and a few soft clucks and such just talkin turkey. having a pretty good idea that mr long beard was just going to be passing through the area i didnt wanna call too much but had been semi agressive with the young hen calls. right at about 8 am i changed diaphram calls over to an old lohman double stacker. that call is raspy to say the least. i hit it with and ol yelp yelp yelp yelp and thunder struck. that old gobbler gobbled his head off not a 100 yds away to our left, exactly where stump saw him the evening before. now little daniels head perks up and he's ready to go. i had him get his gun into postion and i waited. about that time he points over to our right as he has spotted a hen about 30 yds out in front of us. he quickly whispered to me "we cant shoot that one it's a girl" so daniel is off to a good start there. so as she is making her way over to the big tom she starts clucking. my only hope here is to either scare her off and keep her away from him or keep her close to me and make him come to her. not knowing where he was seeeing how i had yet to lay eyes on him i decided to cluck with her. this drove that big tom mad. he gobbled his head off. now i see him right at like 60 yards. he is struttin his stuff and WOW what a nice bird. this guy is big and without a doubt the dominant bird in the area. his beard was about an inch or 2 from touching the ground while in strut and dragging it when he'd drop strut and advance closer. big bird and what a nice one it would be for little daniel's first. so he struts around a little bit but just will not come any closer at all. i dont call at a bird when he's strutting and that close to me. i like to let him make his move in my direction. so i did just that and he really started losing interest. so i hit him with a real soft pur followed by a sweet series of yelps and he got fired right back up. this went on for about 30 minutes and he never would come any closer. right about 830 he dropped strut and turned around and walked off. i was confused as to what had happened. he wasnt spooked he just walked away. then i realized it had just started pooring down rain and he left us. boys i tell you that was one of the most fun turkey hunts that i have ever been on. we hunted the rest of the day in the rain and storms and such and didnt have any luck, but we had one heck of a time and that is really what it is all about.
Friday afternoon myself and stump arrived at Fort Bragg in order to go check out the area that I was going to hunt. upon first arrival there were a few turkey tracks out on the dirt road. This being a pretty good sign we decided to head to the woods and veer off in the direction of a nearby food plot. the weather man was predicting rain for the next day so we figured the birds would wanna be out in the field and out of the woods where the would feel more secure. so down into the woods we went looking for turkey sign and it was NOT present. by the look of all them tracks out on the road the woods should have been tore up. but instead we found no sign down in the woods at all nor did we find any out on the food plot. after a couple hours of not really finding any sign we decided that our best bet is to go to the area where we THINK the birds are roosting at and listen. we decided to spread out up and down the road about 500 meters apart in order to cover as much ground. after listening for about an hour or so stump gives me a call and tells me that he just had 2 toms come by him headed towards the area we thought they were roosting which was about 300 meters into the woods in an area that was off limits to hunting. knowing that all them tracks were all over the road we figured we'd be best suited to set up close to where he was the next morning.
Saturday morning we got out and set up in the blind right at about 630 or so. and little daniel whom is 10 years old was going to try to kill his first turkey. after being there for about an hour and half daniel is getting kind of impatient. i had been hitting several sweet young yelps and a few soft clucks and such just talkin turkey. having a pretty good idea that mr long beard was just going to be passing through the area i didnt wanna call too much but had been semi agressive with the young hen calls. right at about 8 am i changed diaphram calls over to an old lohman double stacker. that call is raspy to say the least. i hit it with and ol yelp yelp yelp yelp and thunder struck. that old gobbler gobbled his head off not a 100 yds away to our left, exactly where stump saw him the evening before. now little daniels head perks up and he's ready to go. i had him get his gun into postion and i waited. about that time he points over to our right as he has spotted a hen about 30 yds out in front of us. he quickly whispered to me "we cant shoot that one it's a girl" so daniel is off to a good start there. so as she is making her way over to the big tom she starts clucking. my only hope here is to either scare her off and keep her away from him or keep her close to me and make him come to her. not knowing where he was seeeing how i had yet to lay eyes on him i decided to cluck with her. this drove that big tom mad. he gobbled his head off. now i see him right at like 60 yards. he is struttin his stuff and WOW what a nice bird. this guy is big and without a doubt the dominant bird in the area. his beard was about an inch or 2 from touching the ground while in strut and dragging it when he'd drop strut and advance closer. big bird and what a nice one it would be for little daniel's first. so he struts around a little bit but just will not come any closer at all. i dont call at a bird when he's strutting and that close to me. i like to let him make his move in my direction. so i did just that and he really started losing interest. so i hit him with a real soft pur followed by a sweet series of yelps and he got fired right back up. this went on for about 30 minutes and he never would come any closer. right about 830 he dropped strut and turned around and walked off. i was confused as to what had happened. he wasnt spooked he just walked away. then i realized it had just started pooring down rain and he left us. boys i tell you that was one of the most fun turkey hunts that i have ever been on. we hunted the rest of the day in the rain and storms and such and didnt have any luck, but we had one heck of a time and that is really what it is all about.
