AZ RANGER Report post Posted May 1, 2015 We have had a busy start to turkey season this year and thought I would share some of our adventures. The jr hunt started with a total of 6 kids in our camp, but onlly 2 old enough to hunt. The others came along to watch. I am the father of three sons, and a friend of mine brought 3 more so we had our hands full. For some reason I failed to take many pictures but here is part of our crew. We only had a couple days to hunt and the weather was not cooperating but we gave it our best shot. The first morning we were in birds right away. We had a couple gobblers fired up and heading our way in no time. I had both boys set up to shoot off of a rest. The only downside to that is that it's hard to reposition if the birds come in from a different direction than expected. Unfortunately that is exactly what happened. We had a hen come in close to the decoys but the gobblers stayed out of the boys field of view. They finally caught on to us and left without a shot. 6 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
AZ RANGER Report post Posted May 1, 2015 Well I accidentally posted before I was ready so stand by for the rest of the story. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
AZkiller Report post Posted May 1, 2015 Did you hunt the burn? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
AZ RANGER Report post Posted May 1, 2015 We got into quite a few other birds with the boys but could not ever get it to work out. The trip was still a success in my book though. The boys got to see some toms strutting and heard lots of gobbles. They saw a lot of elk and deer too. We tried to do some fishing but the wind was pretty bad. Overall a great trip. The following weekend I was out with a buddy of mine trying to fill our tags. The weather was bad again. The birds were not talking much at all. We only had one bird roosted for opening morning and he was in a bad spot so we didn't even go after him. We found some other birds, but they were not hardly gobbling at all. Saturday was much better. We located a Tom but he didn't seem to interested in our calls so we started heading back to the truck. As we crested the top of a hill, I let out a crow call and got a response immediately, and they were close. My buddy and I quickly tried to get set up but they were on top of us before we were ready. We sat behind what little cover we had and waited for them to move away from us. After about five minutes of them gobbling like crazy they finally moved on. We got into position and softly called to them. They came right back to us. It was two gobblers and we were going to try and shoot them both at the same time. They were only about 20 yards out. The problem was that there were enough trees between us, that whenever I had a shot Aaron didn't, and when he had a shot, I didn't. This went on for what seemed like forever until we decided Aaron would just shoot and then I would try to get on the other bird afterwards. As soon as Aaron shoots, the other bird runs through a clearing, and in the blink of an eye our turkey hunt was over. 11 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
muledeerarea33? Report post Posted May 1, 2015 Looks awesome! Congrats Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
218buck Report post Posted May 1, 2015 congrats looks like some good eating Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
murfys69law Report post Posted May 1, 2015 Thats great. Good job and congrats Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ready2hunt Report post Posted May 1, 2015 great post. love seeing family hunting. That's what it's all about! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
8OWHUNT247 Report post Posted May 1, 2015 Well done! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
naturebob Report post Posted May 1, 2015 Nice.......BOB! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
PelaPapas Report post Posted May 1, 2015 Congrats on getting it done! Very cool pics & write up! The pic of the meat looks amazing! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Big Browns Report post Posted May 1, 2015 Awesome! How did you cook your birds. I have mine in the freezer waiting on a good recipe? I love your home made fan decoy! Looks great! Did you use it? Adam Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
lancetkenyon Report post Posted May 1, 2015 My mouth started watering.... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Coach Report post Posted May 1, 2015 Nicely done, Scott. Loved the write up and pix. Congrats. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
AZ RANGER Report post Posted May 3, 2015 Thanks everyone AZkiller, we did hunt the burn a little, but mostly out of the burn. Big Browns to answer your questions, I soaked all the meat in a brine of water, salt, lemon and garlic. I left it in the brine for 2 days and then cooked it slow over a mesquite fire. It was easily some of the best game meat I've ever had. Very flavorful and tender. I actually got the idea from Steve Rinella on an episode of meat eater. The decoy was made by my buddy Aaron. His art skills are pretty impressive. We had other decoys too, but when we killed this the only one we had set up. It worked great. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
