Spring, 2020, South Dakota. Sitting in a blind, a tom pops into sight and Michelle has a clear shot out the side of the blind, but a very brief window as he is on the move.
Michelle: “How far”
Me: (without time to range due to the short window of opportunity) “40 yards”
Michelle: Lets the arrow fly
Generally, I’m very good at guestimating range, especially anything under 100 yards. I normally cut the distance by visualizing it in 10-yard increments and I am almost always within about 3 yards of absolute accuracy which is fine for archery shots. Almost always. As I watched Michelle’s arrow go right over the back of a nice SD Merriam, close enough to have probably skimmed back feathers, I felt sick as I knew her aim and shot placement was absolutely spot on, but my human rangefinding abilities weren’t. That was her first shot at a turkey since getting into archery a few years prior. With only a couple Hail Mary-style day trips looking for turkey from that day until this spring (2024), there would be no more shot opportunities for her.
Going into the 2024 spring turkey application period for Kansas, which opens in early January and closes in early February, we knew that the turkey population in Kansas, particular in the part of the state we are from, was in poor shape. When I was young, it wasn’t out of the ordinary to see several flocks with as many as 150+ turkey all along the creek valley I grew up in. Now if you drive the miles that valley runs, you may only see a few small groups of turkey, or you might see exactly zero. Michelle and I discussed the possibility of drawing tags and decided to give it a try anyway, just for the opportunity to spend some time hunting where I grew up. We knew fully well that we might not even draw tags due to the poor population and limited tags and, if we did, we would likely be spending more time glassing in the middle of nowhere for turkey that weren’t there. We both absolutely love the nostalgia of spending time in the outdoors that I grew up hunting in, so we were fine with having very low expectations if we did draw tags. Turns out, either we were lucky and/or no one bothered to apply for our unit, but we both pulled turkey tags.
Prior to the season opening, my parents started to see a few turkeys around their house and property. They told us about a particularly big tom they named Thunderfoot because of the giant tracks he left in front of their house on the driveway when it was muddy. Hearing about a big tom that hung around the area was promising, but I also knew the reality of success there given the terrain and small population. Other than around houses, some buildings, and a few small stretches of creek side, there are basically no trees and very limited cover outside of a few pieces of CRP property and fields of winter wheat that might be between 12-18 inches high during the spring turkey season. To say hunting this terrain for any animal is tough would be a gross understatement, and trying to hunt a paranoid, hyperactive, mating season-driven bird with extra sharp vision that can see about 300 degrees around its ugly head with a bow gets very complicated very quickly. To make it a little tougher, I hate sitting in a blind as much as I hate being in the city, so we normally call from the ground, spot-and-stalk, ambush, and mostly likely a combination of all of these options. Despite the odds, we were 100% committed to giving it our best effort, and I was 1000% committed to getting Michelle in a position to get her first turkey and first bow kill.
We took off for Kansas midday on May 8th. I drove a 1990-something single cab ¾ ton Dodge pickup that my parents were going to use as a farm vehicle. Michelle got the luxury of driving a smooth riding, quiet, cushy, fully-loaded Tundra. I would say I got the sweet end of that deal. With my back fully “adjusted” and my filling loosened from the smooth glide of the Dodge, I pulled up to my parents house in the late afternoon just in time to see a couple hens and a jake strolling around the backside of their house. Seemed like a good omen to me. I just regained feeling in my lower back and legs as Michelle pulled up. We quickly changed into our hunting gear and set out to find some turkey we could try to move on or at least scout out something as it was going into roost so we could formulate a morning plan.
Around 6:30 that evening we spotted several turkey lurking around in a wheat field on the neighbors property which we had permission to hunt on. There were a couple big toms, some jakes, and a handful of hens spread out about 400 yards deep into the wheat. We parked behind some round bales and worked our way out to the edge of the wheat while staying concealed behind the bales. The hens were feeding around and the toms and jakes were spending most of their time doing the full strut circle dance off with one another. Every once in a while, a particularly large tom with a split in his fan would tire of the little guys and put them in their place, then everyone would go back to the dance party. I did a little soft calling with a diaphragm call and got the attention of the group, although they didn’t show much interest beyond yelping or gobbling back. We slowing moved out to the edge where the wheat met the backside of a large group of trees surrounding the neighbors farm. I put my Heads Up Decoy into my bow mount and began slowly crawling through the maybe 12-inch high wheat toward the strutting toms while Michelle crept along the tree edge. We continued this and closed about 200 yards on the strutters while their hens had slowly moved into the edge of the trees on the backside of the farm. Now that I was fully warmed up from my 200-yard crawl on my knees and non-bow bearing hand, the toms slowly followed the hens behind the trees along the backside of the farm. Knowing we had the cover of the edge of the trees, Michelle and I quickly moved to the back corner of the trees and found the entire flock had popped ninja smoke and vanished.
At that point, it was getting close to roosting time, so we moved to the front side of the farm, which was a good high vantage point, to see if we could spot the group roosting for the evening. From there we watched the toms, jakes, and hens work all around the farm, feeding around the outbuildings and corrals, drinking from the livestock tank, and strutting around annoying the cattle in the corral, until they finally roosted around and above an old abandoned house atop several 40-foot-tall cottonwoods. We stayed at the top of the hill and watched them get settled into their roost and discussed what might be our best option to catch them coming out of roost at sunrise. The coyotes started to howl from about 10 different directions and the sun set on what felt like a promising start to our Kansas hunt.
4 am came early on May 10th, but I was pretty excited to be getting ready for what I hoped would be a successful day. Michelle is usually less than thrilled to be up that early, but I think the excitement of the turkey action we saw the night before made her a little less grizzly bearish that morning. We got around and headed over to the neighbor’s property where we had tucked in the turkey the night before. To our surprise, they were talking a lot and dropped out of roost a little earlier than expected, so we grabbed our bow, the Heads Up Decoy, and got around to the side of the property where we guessed they may go first thing in the morning. I hit the calls a few times and we quickly realized they were moving through the middle of the farm and up towards the high side we had watched them roost from the night before. We quickly moved over to that area, hunkered down behind an old truck, and saw the entire flock, led by the big tom with the split fan, moving through the middle of the cattle corral. The hens were pecking about, the jakes were attempting their best struts to impress the ladies and each other, and the other couple decent sized toms were once again getting their spinning strut on as they worked their way through the corral. We watched them all stroll past us at about 40 yards and, if not for a four-strand barbed wire fence between us and them and the cattle spread around the area, we would have had several decent shot opportunities. Once they got to the edge of the property, the lead tom quickly led them across the road (to property we didn’t have permission to hunt) and they slowly fed along a property line where a wheat stubble field and short CRP field met. Eventually, all but three turkeys worked their way across the top of the CRP field and spread out across two circles of irrigated planted corn. The three that did not follow the others, consisting of two hens and a decent sized tom, headed straight south. Our morning plan to catch them coming out of roost was over and they were off the property we could hunt in a matter of 30 minutes.
We continued to glass the flock as they slowly spread out across the circles and lazily fed deeper onto the clearly posted property long enough to accept the fact they weren’t moving off that property any time soon. We decided to head south and see if we could pick up the trio of outcasts, and we found them slowly moving across a bare field. The field they were moving through is a down sloping field with several terraces (levels or steps with something resembling ditches to catch water flow and minimize water runoff and erosion, for anyone not familiar with the term). At the time we spotted them, they were walking along the edge of the bottom terrace, just above a spot where three different fields meet and are separated by a shallow, dry branch of a creek. The tom was strutting and the hens were pecking around and didn’t seem to be in any kind of hurry. The only cover in the bare dirt was narrow strips of weeds on top of each terrace that were maybe 5 inches high, and the only thing we had working in our favor was they wouldn’t be able to see us due to the terraces until we made it to the edge of the terrace right above them. Since we didn’t know which direction to expect them to move in, I put my Heads Up Decoy on my bow, and we crouched down with Michelle right behind me, and slowly moved across the field, stopping and kneeling down several times to look and call in an attempt to locate the tom.
We eventually covered the ¼ mile gap between us and where we last saw the tom strutting from the road. We stayed squatted down low and moved to the edge of the bottom terrace just above the lower field and stopped just before we could see over the edge and took a knee. Lucky for us we came to a halt in a nice spread of goatheads and sandburs. At least our burning quads and stiff backs were getting a break after duckwalking the last ¼ mile across the field. I let out a few quiet yelps from my diaphragm call, assuming the tom and hens were likely right below us since we couldn’t see them anywhere. The tom immediately returned a thundering gobble. I let out an even softer yelp and the tom once again hollered back. As we were enjoying the feeling of the stickers going into our knees, we waited in silence for what seemed like an eternity for the tom to peak over the terrace. In reality it was maybe 30 seconds, but we had just worked harder to close the distance on this tom than most people would be willing to, so I was anxious to see an arrow drop him. I decided enough time had passed and I raised up a little behind my decoy to see if he had moved further into the lower field and there he was, standing on the upslope of the terrace in some taller weeds, maybe 5 yards from me and slowly creeping my way. Had I waited another 30 seconds I would have had a shot inside 3 yards once he crested the terrace. He saw the decoy pop up out of nowhere, got spooked, and took off towards his hens at what was basically a quick walk. He finally turned broadside while walking at about 30 yards. I lined my pin up, squeezed the release, and let an arrow fly, but failed to calculate the fact he was lower than my position, not drastically lower, but enough to make a difference. My arrow cleanly missed, he walked off with little pep in his step, likely laughing, and moved his hens down the edge of the creek. Happy with the fine shooting display I had just delivered, we picked the stickers out of our knees, picked up my arrow, and walked across the field back to the pickup. I was extremely thrilled with the events that had unfolded over the previous 45 minutes, and I’m guessing Michelle was questioning her choice of guides for this hunt. By that point in the day, it was getting warm quickly, so we tucked the bows away and decided to change gears, do some shed hunting, and scouted out potential coyote calling locations. We were looking for sheds, but all I could see on a constant loop was my arrow missing that tom!
Initially that evening didn’t seem like it was going to be too action packed. We hadn’t seen the turkey anywhere since morning, but we went to the neighbor’s property to find a spot to set up and call, hoping to catch the ear and interest of one of the toms before they moved in to roost. After parking on the high side of the property and jumping out of the pickup, we immediately heard gobbling from the back of the property. We quickly moved towards the edge of the corral the turkeys had moved through that morning and positioned ourselves behind a tractor so we could look down into the farm and see if anything was visible. Shortly after that, two hens seemingly appeared from nowhere and worked their way down the corral to the lower part of the property towards the gobbles. We froze in place and waited until the hens disappeared behind the old abandoned house that sits at the bottom of the hill. The toms once again ripped off a few loud gobbles and we saw movement through the trees near a steel quonset at the bottom of the hill at the back side of the farm. Maybe 50 yards from the movement, positioned between the old house and the quonset, sat a wheat truck. Guessing that we had about an hour before the flock moved in to roost, and hoping they would roost above and around the old house again, our initial plan was to sneak down to the wheat truck so we could be in a spot between the turkeys and their comfortable cottonwood tree/bed. We had about 100 yards to cover downhill, through the farm, past various pieces of machinery and trailers, and across an open driveway to the wheat truck. It seemed complicated, but we had many pieces of cover between us and the truck, so once again we lined up behind the bow mounted decoy and started our careful and quiet decent into the bottom and towards the turkey.
Slowly and methodically, we moved from tractor, to old pickup, to cattle trailer, to a tree, to another pickup, stopping at each spot to look, listen, and occasionally doing some cutting to get the toms to gobble and give up their location. Finally, we made it to the broadside of the old house and we were able to stand upright for a second to stretch our legs and assess how or spot and stalk was going. All we had to do was move to the edge of the old house and across the driveway to get to our target location behind the truck. The gobbles were starting to become more frequent and the hens were starting to talk, so we knew it was time to get to the truck for what felt like the most ideal place to set up an ambush on the toms. Once we were at the edge of the old house, with Michelle right behind me, we slowly stepped out from the house. One step, two step, and freeze in place. Out of the corner of my left eye about 10 yards out I saw movement in my peripheral vision. I had froze partway through a step, with my left foot flat, my right foot in front of me with only the ball of my foot on the ground, and my bow in my left had with my arm bent in front of me holding my bow. I hoped that Michelle had seen me freeze and did the same, but I didn’t have any way to check. In my statue-like stance, I could see the movement that initially caused me to freeze in place was two toms feeding around the back corner of the old house. I could see them moving about and saw several hens moving around in the area as well. I continued to not move anything and only occasionally and slowly blinked my squinted eyes as I pondered the less than stellar position I was in, waiting for the turkey to figure out what I was and blow out of there at any second. For a brief second, I could see all the turkeys to my left had stepped behind the house and I was able to set my right foot down completely on the ground and slightly turn by body to the left so I could see a little more clearly and comfortably, then I froze in place again as the toms walked back out into the open. I watched the big alpha tom jump up on top of a gate by the quonset just past the truck I so desperately wished we were sitting behind. He was obviously the boss as he sat on top of the gate and watched a few jakes go under the gate. I could see his beard hanging down and was amazed at how giant his body was. He let out a loud gobble, then jumped down and started following the hens and jakes towards the back corner of the old house I was conveniently positioned in front of like a large lawn gnome in camo. Every once in a while, he would give the jakes an attitude adjustment as they attempted to strut for the ladies. Eventually, he made it to the corner of the house I had been watching, and he started smacking around the larger toms.
At this point there were hens everywhere around us, or at least around me. I really had no idea if Michelle was frozen in place as statue number two directly behind me or if she was able to move and find a better spot. The hens were constantly talking, the toms and jakes were almost continually gobbling and strutting, and I finally had a brief second of relief where all the turkeys seemed to be around the back of the house. This allowed me to move my head enough to see that Michelle wasn’t behind me any more. It was getting dim pretty quickly and I knew it was only a matter of minutes before the gang started to jump up in the cottonwoods for the evening. The yelps and gobbles tapered off and in a brief moment where no hens were yelping and no toms or jakes were gobbling, I thought our evening was about over and fully expected to hear nothing but wings flapping up into the trees. It was in the brief moment of silence I heard two unmistakable sounds I immediately recognize above all others in the world of bowhunting for turkeys. Two sounds and a moment I will never forget. It was the faint sound of a quiet yet extremely fast bowstring releasing and slinging an arrow, and the loud thump of that carbon arrow tipped with a razor sharp broadhead slamming into and through thick, tough turkey feathers. I quickly spun around out of my lawn statue position and saw Michelle about 30 yards away from me, standing behind the wide trunk of the big cottonwood tree the turkeys had roosted in the night before. She was waving her release hand above her head and pointing out past the other side of the old house. I asked her if the turkey had dropped and she said “he’s down right over there!” The big tom I had been watching on the gate, the big alpha with the split in his fan that was clearly the shot caller of the flock, shortly thereafter identified by my parents, was Thunderfoot, and he was down just a couple of feet from where the arrow found him. Michelle had no time or opportunity to range him, but determined him to be 30 yards out. She peaked out around the edge of the tree, drew with no effort or memory of doing so, dropped the 30-yard pin into her peep onto Thunderfoot’s vitals, and cut her release loose. The arrow passed through his body and vitals and only stopped without complete pass through by hanging up on the fletching. I’m always excited when I have a successful hunt and tag something, but I don’t think I will ever find more happiness in hunting than I felt at that moment. After the countless hours and reps with her bow, after going on various hunting trips with me and learning as much as she could, after the miss in South Dakota, Michelle had her first turkey and bow kill.
Normally, I would wrap up something I write with a closing paragraph, but there was nothing about this experience for me, and certainly not for Michelle that was ordinary. This will likely be the most memorable hunting experience of my life, and hopefully hers as well, and I feel its best closed out simply with something Michelle wrote and posted about her experience:
“Thunderfoot
Smart, yet erratic, sees and hears every little thing.
Tonight I’m reflecting on my first successful archery turkey hunt from one week ago. The experiences, sounds, feelings, and images will never be forgotten. My confidence has grown Exponentially after getting into this situation and taking this tom on my own.
He was the alpha, the boss, leader of the pack…… he was Thunderfoot.”
-Michelle
