Bird Down

[125coues]

Well first of all I would like to thank all the people on this site that helped with locating birds in the units I hunted in. Most of all thanks to my wife for buying me the Commissioners tag so I could go after a Goulds ,she is so sweet.

 

Well now that my hunt is out of the way, I to in turn will offer my help to anyone who has a goulds tag in units 29 ,31 or 35a as those were the areas that I scouted in and hunted in so you can PM me with your phone number and I will give you a call .

 

I started out to take a bird with my bow but after 2 misses I decided to pick up my shotgun and get a bird, I guess you can say I am not as good with my bow as I hoped to be .

Another thing I found out on my trips was that my calling was good to locate them I had a hard time getting them to stop. The two birds I missed with my bow came in to the call but it was as if they were on some other mission and would not stop moving for me .The first one was seen in a canyon in 35A with 10 other gobblers all on a steady walk to their roost so I got in front of them and waited for the bird I was after to come into my shooting lane ,I let out a couple of yelps to get it to stop but it did not and I glanced my arrow off it's back. We checked the area that evening and did not find a dead or wounded bird. In the morning we located them on their roost and after they flew down I found them in a oak thicket and was unable to shot but was happy to count all 11 gobblers as they left the thicket. That was my first try at a goulds with my bow my second was in unit 29 the next weekend and again I had a great bird across the creek in full strut coming through my lane to give me a shot but he was chasing 2 hens that had a jake with them and he moved like a baby quail moves. He came in and did not want to stop to any sound I was making and I shot and hit the log that was behind him. As I said me and my bow probably just needed to spend more time together.

 

I am now on my 3rd weekend of trying to get a bird with my bow and I am back in unit 35A with my wife and we get up after a so so night of sleep in the bed of my truck. You tend to forget just how many stars you can see in the sky at night sleeping in your bed in your house night after night. So we get up get our camo on, get all our gear bow ,calls, vest and get into the ranger to go locate some birds we can hear from camp. Drive down the road to the gate, get out just to hear a gobbler gobble in a tree behind us we turn off the engine look up in the trees about 50 to 75 yards away and see 3 birds on the very top limbs so we set out the decoy hoping they will forget about us and sneak to another set of trees to wait. Just as we get under this tree I hear a faint pop then another pop, I look at my wife and see is pointing up in the tree we are under, Yes we walked under a tree with another bird in it and it was less than 30 seconds all the birds were flying to some nearby private property, so all we could do was watch them strut around where we could not go. Blew that one very early.

So we move to another canyon to see if we can locate some more birds, we stop and walk to edge of a canyon, I make a call and we hear 2 birds below us, so we set out after them, get in to what seems to be about 75 yards set decoy out, turn and get set up to call in bird only to look to my left to see one walking away. We stayed set up in hopes of calling in bird 2 only to hear both off them get farther and farther away. We return to the ranger to see if we can get out in front of them only to later come across 6 jakes that were not afraid of us. They were feeding and did not care that we were less than 30 yards from them. My wife got some good video of them. We spent the rest of day trying to locate the 11 gobblers from the 1st weekend only to find where someone had been throwing clays for target practice directly above the canyon they had been roosting in and I was unable to locate any roosting birds that evening due to all the campers that had decided to move in to areas some birds were also roosting in. I did mention just how many stars you can see while sleeping in the bed of your truck ALOT.

Sunday April 14th comes and as usual my wife and I get up get on our camo, calls and other gear for the days hunt only one difference this morning I decide it is time to bring my shotgun instead of my bow. My wife reminds me I still have a lot of time left since I do have a commissioners tag but I remind her again that I need to spend more time with my bow and off we go. We drive to gate get out and I make a low yelp and watch my wife point in the direction back by the camp, I call again and hear the gobble over the sound of a generator running. So we turn around and drive past the last camp on the road stop get out and grab the decoy to hear a gobble coming from, yes you guessed it the tree that is less than 100 yards from us. I glass up at the top of the tree to see a lone gobbler with no visible beard another Jake. My wife points to another tree to show me 3 more birds in the top of it. Then we hear more to the left of us that these birds are talking to so, we slowly move to get between the 2 sets of birds, put out the decoy get set to blast a bird. My wife spots another bird in the top of a tree just to see it fly down. When it is on the ground we hear it start yelping it was a hen and she started to go up the hill away from us and took all gobblers with her.

So off we go to locate more birds but this time we are going to a canyon way farther south of Parker canyon lake, one I heard that there was a good group of birds in and also a canyon that no one hunts in because of how far it is.

By the way the game manager in 35A is a really nice guy .You see on the very first time I was in 35A and I shot at that bird that I glanced my arrow off of and when I came walking out of the canyon yelling to my friend that I was going back to the truck. I get to the truck to have someone walking up to me asking what was I doing and me telling him that I was hunting turkeys and him saying what did you say, I said hunting turkeys and then realizing I need to show him the tag in my pocket. Like I said he was a really nice guy and we chatted for a while then we both left.

Back to the canyon no one hunts in, well we found it and was surprised to find that it was full of campers and hikers just waking up stretching and brushing their teeth and wow there sure is a lot of people here so we slowly drove through all the camps to the end of the road to get out and hear a gobbler back in the direction of all the camps. We drive back slowly to not make any dust back through the area where all the camps were to find another road. We stop and listen and he is still gobbling good so we start to walk up the road since we are past the last camp on this road. At this point my wife informs me as to the direction of the bird he is up the hill to our right. I make a couple of yelps he answers back so we slowly move in his direction. I decide to not yelp anymore and throw out a couple of low pucks he answers back, I look at my wife and see she is pointing to my left so I slowly move 10 more yards to the edge of a small canyon to see him walking from my right to left, I raise my gun put the sight on his head, he is only 35 yards from us I pull the trigger to find out I still have my safety on. I probably cussed myself, quickly took off my safety and shot in front of him, he turned I reloaded and shot again and that one did the trick. I looked at my wife and she said hurry get to the bird it is flopping around. I climbed down to him and held him tight to keep him from losing feathers.

I was finally done with my hunt and my wife has the kill on film so we will try to get the footage on asap. I hope you enjoyed my story and these pics .

 

Once again thanks everyone who helped

And also to Little Creek Calls for supplying me with new calls to use on my hunt and yes they were the ones I used to do all my calling with.

 

 

 

 

[Jay Scott]

125, great story and pics! Sounds like you had a great adventure. Congrats and thanks for posting

[AverageJoe]

Awesome! Who had the governors tag this year? I mean which auction was it at? I am interested in getting it for next year.

[hunter1026]

I stopped to talk to you when you were taking pics congrats again

[bonecollector]

Great story, sounded like you had plenty of action. Congrats on the bird.

[tjhunt2]

Once again congratulations on a beautiful bird Mark. Great write-up to go along with which sounded like an awesome hunt. He is going to make a beauty of a mount. Thanks for sharing. Can't wait to see the video Kathi took.

 

TJ

[standman]

Great goulds!!! Thanks for sharing your story and pics.

 

Brian

[walksfar]

Nice bird,happy for you.

[Basser15]

Right on! Congrats on the bird

[singleshot]

Nice bird and great write up. You sure got to see a lot of country on this hunt.

[Santana Outdoors]

Nice!!! Thanks for sharing with us.

[Don Martin]

Dang Mark, sure wished you had taken me up on my offer..oh well, you got a nice bird, and had a fun time with the wife, who made it all happen with the purchase of that tag!

 

Good deal.

 

Headed to San Carlos on Wednesday to doing a little work before the season opens on Saturday.

 

I've got double digit bonus points for turkey so hope it won't be long before I get to go back down there.

 

Like I said, Unit 35A was THE place to go!

 

Don Martin

[lucky2hunt]

Fantastic bird Mark! Congratulations!!!

[SunDevil]

congrats on a beautiful bird and an enjoyable hunt!

[trophyhnter]

Great writeup! You got your moneys worth on this hunt with a couple of misses before you sealed the deal! Huge congrats!