My turkey season has come and gone. I had a great time, I learned a lot and I am looking forward to going back out on my second tag. Before that happens, I want to get you caught up on my first tag.

Going into the season I had a little higher level of anticipation because I had a new hunting blind to use. The new blind is like any other turkey blind that I own with one huge exception: it’s see-through and by that, I mean when I sit inside of it I can see through the fabric but from the outside, the turkeys can’t see in. I heard other hunters claim that since they could see so clearly through the blind, they would remain motionless when turkeys were approaching. The blind is that effective. Well, that was enough of an endorsement for me to buy one.

I wanted to take full advantage of my new see-through blind, so I set it up in the middle of the roosting trees. I wanted to be able to watch and see how the birds reacted on the roost. I was prepared to be sitting in the blind as early as possible to make that happen. It meant that I had to get in it before the birds woke up making my arrival time at the blind around 4:30 a.m. 

For the entire season I sat in my new blind and watched the turkeys wake up. The show was amazing. I learned that the same toms and hens slept in the same trees almost every night. The one exception to that was when the wind blew hard all night and the birds compensated by roosting lower in the valley.

It was also interesting watching the toms gobble and strut in the trees. Yep, they actually fanned out, no doubt trying to make an impression on the hens before either of them flew down to the ground. The toms even turned around to gobble in the opposite direction making sure they communicated with as many hens as possible. 

I observed that the toms seemed to gather steam while in the roost. The closer they got to fly down the more they fidgeted and gobbled. I was so taken in by the experience that while I wanted to bag a bird, I wasn’t disappointed when it didn’t happen because I got to go out the next morning and watch the show again.

Another notable observation I made every morning is just how quickly the toms found the hens and vice versa. It seemed like one moment every turkey was happy, gobbling and yelping in the trees and the next thing I saw were two toms following along behind a hen like they were in a hypnotic trance. Because the underbrush hadn’t swallowed up the woods yet, it was easy to see the birds coming and going. When a tom figured out that “it” wasn’t going to happen with that particular hen, he wasted no more time and sought out another suitor and it generally didn’t take long.

So for six of the seven days of my season that I hunted I literally watched the birds overhead as they woke up. Sometimes it was a crow calling off in the distance that started off the first gobble of the morning and other times it was a hooting owl that caused the first tom to hammer out a good morning gobble.  

When the final curtain fell on my season I still had my tag in my back pocket. Oh, I had a few chances and could throw out a reasonable excuse but it wouldn’t change the outcome, and you know what? If I could do it all over again, I don’t think that I would do anything different. Wait, there is one thing I am going to do on my second tag. I’m gonna hunt the edge of the woods instead of in the middle of it. That way I don’t have to get up at oh dark thirty.

Didn’t get enough Dave this week? Visit “Outdoor Trails and Tales with Dave Beck” on Facebook or at  ottwithdavebeck on Instagram for photos and video of Dave’s adventures. You can share your own photos and video with him there as well, or by emailing him at dave@piercecountyjournal.news Also, check out OTT content on Instagram @thepiercecountyjournal