3 for 3 in unit 1

[Big Browns]

Friday morning couldn't come fast enough. After a long day at work on Thursday, my wife & I were on our way to the White Mountains for our Spring Turkey Hunt. We didn't leave town (Queen Creek) until 6pm. Our Friend Lonne was planning on meeting us in Springerville to follow us to camp. We made it to Springerville by 11 P.M. After stopping for a few things. We finally made it to camp by midnight.

 

The alarm was going to be going off in 3 hours. WOW! My wife & I decided to sleep in the truck so we could get to sleep. Poor Lonne had to set up a tent at midnight! I tried sleeping, but after 30 minutes of being uncomfortable in the front seat I decided to lay my pad on the ground so I could be more comfortable. The wind was howling & it was cold, but it was a lot more comfortable.

The 3 A.M. Alarm went off WAY TO SOON!!!! We all jumped up and started getting ready. Our goal was to be walking to our spot by 3:45. We were on the road walking by our scheduled time. Thankfully we left early, because I got really confused after walking for 20 minutes. I hadn't been to this spot in 4-5 years. After walking around in the dark for a while I finally found our water hole. We split up and set up our blinds & decoy's on opposite ends of the water hole. Now we started the waiting game.

 

The weather SUCKED! It was a lot colder than I had prepared for. My wife & I were freezing! At about 6:30 my wife started freaking out. I heard her say TURKEY, TURKEY, TURKEY!!! She saw 6 Turkey's about 60 yards outside my window. I tried to calm her, but she was very, very, very excited. These Turkey's came off the roost silent. They never made a noise. I hoped the Turkey's would feed out of the trees into the field, but they disappeared into the forest. I explained to my wife that Turkey's can hear very well & she needs to be a little calmer if she sees a Turkey coming. About 30 minutes later I hear my wife say TURKEY, TURKEY, TURKEY!!! I said SHHHHHHHHHH & WHERE:) She located the same 6 Turkey's on the edge of the field. I was able to glass the flock. It had 2 nice Tom's. They never made a sound. I thought they would see my decoys and come straight to us or they would work around the pond and walk into Lonne. Unfortunately they continued to work the edge of the field while walking away and out of sight. We were both bummed.

 

The next hour was very, very, very COLD! I was starting to doubt if another Turkey would come in. I’m not a very patient personJ At 7:30 I told my wife I wanted to go back to the Truck to warm up. We could start walking around to look for a hot bird. My wife said “NO”. She wanted to stay a little longer. I said “ok”, but I’m leaving at 8.

 

While we were sitting in our chairs freezing we both heard a noise. We looked at each other and asked if the other one heard that noise. About that time we heard it again. It was a Gobble. I started looking around the pond. I heard the Gobble again and saw 2 Tom’s come into view on top of a small hill. They were about 300 yards away on a small hill at the edge of the water hole. This is when the fun happened. I had forgotten my box call in the truck. I wasn’t too worried, because we were planning on sitting the pond most of the day. Now I was really pissed, because I didn’t have my call with me. I was positive I could get them to respond. That’s when I realized I had down loaded a Turkey App on my phone. I grabbed my phone and hit the hen Yelp a few times. The birds responded instantly and started working our way. I yelped a few more times and gobbled back to them using the Gobble call. I had set up a hen & tom decoy, so I thought the gobble would work. It did. As soon as they heard the gobble they started gobbling more. They were headed straight for us. I whispered to my wife “get ready, you’re going to get a shot”. We had already decided she would get the first shot & I would shoot the 2^nd bird after she shoots her bird. As they got closer I kept whispering “wait, wait, wait”. When they got into range I shouldered my gun and prepared for the shot. As soon as I was ready I told her to “shoot”. After about 20 seconds she still hadn’t shot. I said again, “shoot”. I instantly heard “Boom”. My wife’s bird was down instantly. I immediately shot at my bird. After my 1^st shot the bird started running away. I fired 2 more shots. I saw my bird limping away out of the field. I was out of shells in my gun. I grabbed my wife’s gun and attempted to get out of the blind in a hurry. As you all know, getting out of a blind in a hurry is not that fastJ I finally managed to get out of the blind and started running toward my bird. I was able to get another shot and got my bird.

We were both very excited! This was my wife’s first Turkey. She was overwhelmed with emotion. She couldn’t believe we got out animal on the first day. I haven’t been the best guide over the past couple of yearsJ

 

Lonne made his way over to us and the hugs and high five’s started. He was able to watch the whole thing from 200 yards away. He said it was like he was watching a T.V. show. After we took a bunch of pictures we loaded up & headed to camp.

 

After getting back to camp we decided to try walking around to locate a hot bird. After walking for about 30 minutes I was able to get a bird to respond. We set up a couple of times, but the bird wasn’t responding very well. We tried to work in closer and ended up spooking the bird. He was coming in silent. Bummer. We walked for another hour, but we didn’t hear anything. We did find another water hole that had a lot of fresh Turkey tracks. I told Lonne we should get his blind and he should sit this pond for the next couple of days. He agreed. 30 minutes later we had his blind set up and brushed in. We had planned on heading back to camp & come back at 4pm. After talking about it, Lonne decided he would sit the pond for the whole day. I was very confident he would get a shot. I agreed to pick him up at dark.

 

My wife & I headed to Showlow to drop her Turkey off at our taxidermist and good friend Will Huett (twowindytaxidermy). Will was very excited for both of us. We then headed for the Cabin in Greer we had rented for the weekend. We met up with Lonne’s wife and explained what had happened. Everyone was very excited. A few hours later I drove back to the pond to pick up Lonne. As I drove up I saw Lonne standing at the road. I was very confused, because I saw he had packed up the blind, decoy’s & char to the road. I thought “why did he pack everything up when we have to sit the pond in the morning”? A few seconds later I saw Lonne raise both his hands into the air. I then realized he “got one”. I jumped out of the truck and gave him a huge hug and congrats. I was very excited for him!

 

I’ll let Lonne tell the rest of the story.

 

It was an Awesome weekend!

[Wrk2Hnt]

You guys did great. Congrats on some beautiful birds.

[Adicted]

thats great...congrats on u both

[Xforcebaby]

That is really awesome.

[DCS]

Nice Job

[6ANut]

Congrats Adam thanks for sharing and nice thunder chickens.

[Couzer]

Awesome!!!

[kidso]

Very cool story. Almost makes me want to shoot a bird! Is that common to go 3 for 3 in turkey, or is that a tough thing to accomplish?

[nighthawk]

Nice work Adam!

[resolute]

Fantastic! Will, order up the mannequins! Congrats!

[lonne]

Adam ain't kidding! Friday could not come fast enough! Work was relentless, and I haven't been taken much if any days off. Actually, the most time I had off recently was due to an unexpected surgery 6 weeks back, and even that I barely had time off. Talk about recovering on the job! Well I'm all about Work Hard and Play Hard, and Adam is an awesome guy because Adam likes to hunt hard! So we were talking about pairing up on a good Turkey hunt, and I had never been Turkey hunting! I've seen a decent number of birds in various spots throughout AZ that I was saving for a day when I knew I could have a good Turkey hunt and put some time to it.

Well Adam came to the rescue and it didn't take much convincing for us to join our points and see if we could get a decent Spring tag. We did, and to get Friday off was awesome in itself, I had super low expectations. I've filled some nice tags in the past, but in the more recent past all the hunting has been super hard. Call it my dry streak, and not taking much time off hasn't helped either. It's hard to run out on a weekend and get something on a Saturday, even a Saturday and a Sunday.

I was looking forward to being out in the beautiful outdoors and just enjoying some relaxation time, and who knows maybe I'd tag a turkey, coyote, or mountain lion! Friday finally did come soon enough and when it did, it came *fast*! So fast, I was barely prepared, and I hate last minute packing but it seems all the hunts lately have been like that.

We got my wife and kid out and took off for the mountains. Funny enough! We ran into Adam in Show Low even though we weren't supposed to meet up until later. I filled out my timesheet with a hotspot, answered a work email, all while sitting in the passenger seat of our car. We got out to our camp spot, it was much later than we thought it would be, and it was freezing outside!! Winds were fierce. I quickly put wools on my son and pitched up a tent solidly staked. I was so exhausted I hit the pillow hard and cozied up in my nice warm sleeping bag.

now suddenly I can't sleep from excitement, and the wind is storming outside, I've got no earplugs (wine wine, lol), I can't sleep. LOL! Finally I must've passed out and I set two alarms that both went off at 3:15. Up and at'em. Got dressed and suddenly me, Adam, and his wife are scurrying out in the dark looking for our spot.

We finally got to our spot, and put our blinds. I sat in my blind, quickly boiled some hot water and made coffee, and tried to find Adam's blind in the dark with the barely new light. It was quiet for an hour, and I was comfy as ever in my blind. Suddenly there they are ! 6 Turkeys straight in front of me...I'm guessing 500 yds away? Maybe 400? I don't know but they were far. Adam's blind was pretty far to the right...no way he had a shot either. So I watched the turkeys for awhile, much entertained.

I was hoping they'd come around the waterhole, but they didn't. Suddenly they went up a hill and seemingly disappeared into the pines. I picked them out every once in awhile. Gradually I lost them, and then I was standing up/siting down, doing everything I could to stay warm, keep the blood circulating. All of a sudden I heard gobble gobble...

Excitingly I sat down just in time to see two turkeys hurriedly approaching Adam's decoys and blind. I knew Adam or his wife would get a shot, the turkeys were too far away from me. I didn't bring my binos, only my 8x rangefinder and I couldn't tell if they were Toms but I was betting at least one was!

Suddenly the turkeys closed in, shots rang out, and I see one turkey go down. Adam runs out of the blind and shoots the other one. It was like having front row seats to a husband and wife TV show, but I was maybe a litle farther from the front row. Talk about excitement though! I rushed out and celebrated with them.

Then took a walk with Adam and his wife, and suddenly Adam is calling in turkeys with a hen call. We did this for some time, with nothing, when suddenly a mile or two in we heard some gobbles! We carefully tried to call the turkey in with me in a shooting position everytime we heard a gobble, but after a few the bird spooked and took off.

Adam decided to make a run for the taxidermist, and I decided heck I might as well hunt hard the rest of the day, you never know what'll happen!

Adam helped me setup my blind at a new water hole which would probably be my spot for the next few days. He left me an NRA Hunting Magazine with a New Mexico bear article in it. I camo'ed up my blind real good with local brush, and then started to sit. I got tired as I worked 4 straight 12 hour plus days, and hadn't had maybe 2 hours this last night before the hunt. I started getting sleepy and decided to nap in my blind. Suddenly I hear gobbles, and I wake up, and there they are two turkeys about 30 yards away. Neither was a gobbler, so he was around somewhere, but he never came out. Eventually those birds left, and I began to lose the adrenaline but was having a great time. My expectations were again at an all time low (amazing how 1 hour will do that to you!) when suddenly a small turkey creeps up behind the left side of my blind. He/she was way too small, so I just watched him walk and eat until he disappeared. It was now 5:30pm with dark fast approaching. Suddenly out from the same spot on the left side of the blind walks this big Tom! I waited until he was in the right spot in front of me. I aimed, fired, bam ! He was down, twirling around and suddenly he was done! I was ecstatic! I did it. I ran out in case I'd need to take one more shot but I never had to. I barely tapped the turkey with my foot to make sure he wasn't still alive. All was good! Now I was debating to sit the stand for longer and maybe a coyote or lion would come in, but then I also didn't know if Adam was waiting where he said he'd be. I figured I'd got my bird and if he was there I'd head back so we could start all the cleaning, gutting, etc. and get back in time for dinner with my wife. I took down everything and hiked it all out, repeatedly hiking between the road and the spot several times. I waited and waited and decided to look sad when Adam drove up. I must have done a pretty good job...right when he approached I raised my arms in excitement!

Amazing we all 3 tagged out first day! It was an opening day hunt success story I sure needed after all the hunts I've had successful to the last hour and day! You just never know. What a blast...spent the remainder of the weekend relaxing with family in the crazy snow storm and did some fly fishing with Adam...what a blast, thanks again Adam and wife!

The funnest was suprising my wife who has some turkey recipes ready to go and my 5 year old son, who now wants to go turkey hunt! And we have requested Will to order another mannequin... :-)

And Keith...I don't think it's easy to go 3 for 3...especially on opening day, that's for sure, for any game animal.

[cramerhunts]

Right on! You guys did great! Congratulations on some very fine birds.

[kidso]

I would have gone NUTS without that bear article from Adam to keep me occupied! Great job!

[tjhunt2]

Congratulations on all your turkeys. Great write up! I have always liked sitting water holes for turkeys. You guys definitely had the right setup to stay dry and comfortable which is a must in my book to set all day on water. If there are tracks sooner or later they will come. I got excited reading your post Adam and Lonni. Thanks for sharing.

 

TJ

[Big Browns]

Great job Lonne!!!! I wish you would have showed a little excitement in your picture. We could hardly tell if you were happy:)