Turkey Hunting, April 8, 2012

This past Thursday, Mickey Donahoo and I drove out to his hunting lease 35 miles south of Sonora, Texas and as soon as we got there, we ate a sandwich, unloaded our gear, changed into our camo and headed out for a go at a turkey, all of this by 12:30 PM!  We used a ground blind that Mickey had made the week before, the turkey hunting season opened a week before ours, north zone, south zone you see, then we set up our decoy, got into the blind and proceeded to wait for some action.

The blind was under a cedar tree, it was almost hot except when a breeze came through, it was hard to keep our eyes open, we each nodded several times, but about 1:00 PM a hen showed up, just nibbling along, walking toward the decoy.  She passed up the water trough shown in the picture and came on toward the decoy.

Another hour, nothing, this blind, made for Doris, Mickey’s wife, her being all of 4 foot 11, at the most, was really uncomfortable to me, no way to stretch my legs out and yesterday I had gotten a shot in each knee, really uncomfortable!  Around 4:00 PM, 2 gobblers came up to get water, since they were both shooters, no pictures.  Right away I hefted my shotgun to my shoulder, ready for a shot, but the 2 big birds were more interested in getting a drink. It seemed like an hour, my shotgun ready, then I started getting the shakes, never having had them before shooting, the more I held the gun, the more my heart started beating, faster, faster, I thought I would hyperventilate, finally the one with the best beard separated from the other.  Boom and down the gobbler went!

The picture shows me with the Rio Grande gobbler, my shotgun and a big smile.  Right after this picture, we went back to the camp, got my rifle and headed out to the blind where I shot the javalina in January, see my post “The Shortest Hunt” on January 17, 2012.  At this spot, we had the opportunity to take some great pictures that I’ll post on April 11th.

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