Outdoor Drop 5: Against the Oak Tree | Stories from the Spring Turkey Woods

On this episode of Keota Outdoors, Luke brings you another “Outdoor Drop” edition — podcasts recorded right in the middle of the action. Settled against the base of a big hickory tree during an evening turkey hunt in north Missouri, Luke reflects on an unforgettable day chasing hard-gobbling eastern longbeards.

An action-packed morning brought two different gobblers inside 25 yards, creating the kind of close encounters turkey hunters dream about. Unfortunately, the hunt didn’t end the way he had hoped — but as every passionate turkey hunter knows, sometimes the hunts that don’t end with a punched tag are the ones you remember forever.

This episode is quiet, calm, and filled with the natural sounds of the spring woods — singing birds and the peaceful atmosphere that keeps hunters coming back season after season. If you enjoy hearing real hunting stories, close encounters with big eastern gobblers, and the beauty of spring turkey season in the Midwest, this is an episode you won’t want to miss.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey everybody, welcome to Guild Outdoors. Um this here's an outdoor drop episode, so occasionally I'll record an episode like in the field doing whatever I'm doing, and that's the case for this one. It is April 28th, about 6.20 in the evening. I'm doing a little evening turkey hunt here. Um doing this because I wanted to capture what all happened this morning. It was just too good of a morning to not capture. Somehow, just an amazing morning in the turkey woods for me that didn't end as I wanted it to, but started off this morning in this spot actually, and never heard a gobble. So I pretty quickly left and went to another place that we've been having some birds in and around that piece of ground, so went in there and I could hear three or four different gobblers like way off on the neighbor. And I think historically I probably would have just walked away and tried a new spot. But I'm trying to hunt with a little more patience this year. Spend a little more time in the woods and just let things be. I'm a little less run and gun style and more sit-down and wait, kind of hunt, but anyway, these birds, a few different birds were gobbling. Well, I called at them a couple times and they'd answer sometimes, and sometimes they wouldn't answer, you know. I was just trying to feel them out. Um from then I kind of bounced back and forth between which bird I thought I might be able to call in, and finally I realized one of them was closing the distance a little bit. He was probably 400 yards on the neighbor, and he I could tell he'd come out into the neighbor's bean field, and I was pretty confident he'd come across that bean field. What I wasn't sure he would do was come across the fence and into the timber where I was. When I realized he was coming, I backed up quite a bit and called back in one of our food plots. And I called there a few times pretty loud. And he answered, so I knew that he'd heard me, you know, that was the gonna be the last spot he had heard me from. So I moved back up, probably twenty yards closer to him, and sat down. And before long I could see him coming. See him in that bean field, and he gobbled the whole way in. Just gobbled. Multiple times. I mean, every five yards he walked, he was gobbling. And uh what I was afraid of happening happened. He got to that fence line or like the tree line between the neighbors and us, and he hung up. Just stood there gobbling, stood there gobbling. And I thought, I'm gonna have to call at him again. Like I think he'll come, but I'm gonna have to call and like give up my location, which I really didn't want to do. So I kind of over my shoulder and you know, cut my hand to try to change the direction of it. I yelped pretty soft. And he gobbled at it. I knew he heard it, and sure enough, here he'd come. And rather than coming right down the trail like I thought he might, he got off to my right a little bit. And, you know, as a right-handed shooter, you could shoot straight in front of you and then left. So he's kind of getting me jammed up on my right, and I I got rotated a little bit, kind of rather than leaning straight back against the tree. I kinda had my shoulder against the tree. And I'm doing this while he's all within 75 yards, probably. And I can hear him drumming. Can't see him at this point, but I can hear him drumming. He gobbles a couple times, and he's coming for sure. And finally I lay eyes on him, and I'm just watching him, and guns up. And like I said, he was kind of to my right, and he got behind some trees that were probably at 30 yards. And I used that moment to get down on my gun, get ready. And if he continued to go right, I was gonna be in trouble. I wasn't really gonna be able to shoot that way, but luckily he turned left, and what ended up happening, he came through those trees, and I think he's about 25 yards. And he was strapped in them trees. He stopped at one point, I could see his breast just sticking out. And he cleared those trees and kind of got his full body out of the trees, and he stretched his old neck out looking, you know. And my reaction was he was looking at me. I had my camera up running. You know, you can't always hide perfectly. I felt like I had a pretty good hide. I was against a big tree. And I don't know. He stuck his head up like he saw something he didn't like. In hindsight, looking back, maybe he stuck his head up looking for the hen that I was imitating, you know. Because a bird can pinpoint exactly where you call from, and I mean he got to 20 yards, 25 yards, knowing he should be able to see where that hen was, and he raised up looking for it, maybe, I don't know. But when he did that, I felt like I gotta take the shot, and I got down on my gun and shot, and maybe I rushed it. I don't really know, but he flapped his wings and be in a few seconds was in the air flying away. I really don't know how. I might have been a little high, I probably was aiming more at the head rather than the base of the neck, so maybe that was the issue. I'm not sure, but it was picture perfect until then, just to call one from that far away. He gobbled the whole way in, he pretty much come right to my lap, you know, no decoys. I'm just setting it all up just right. I just didn't quite finish the deal. So I tried to keep my spirits up, you know. I actually took off and went on a little walk looking for them because it could happen. You shoot one, they fly off and they go down, actually, but I didn't find them. So I ended up going to another property and got back in there, set up against a tree, and just started calling, you know. I said, I'll just sit here and call for a while. And didn't take long, birds started gobbling. Gobbling really good. Well, I decided to close the distance on him. He was off on the neighbor, but I had plenty of ground to work with on us. And well, he he kind of worked off from where I first heard him to by the time I got over there, he had probably walked away from me 200 yards, and I just kept calling as I was going over there to let him know, you know, I'm kind of coming that way. Well, again, he was in the neighbor's field. I couldn't see him, but I could tell where he was at. He was gobbling so good. And he was in the neighbor's field. I was staying on us in the timber, and I decided to walk this trail behind me away from the bird and start calling to imitate, you know, I'm here, but I'm going this way. And I figured he was gobbling so much he was by himself. And I don't know, I make it 50 yards down this trail, kind of walking away, calling, and he gobbles, and it was definitely closer. And I'm like, okay, he's coming. I think I let out one last series of yelps there facing away. And then I just started to close the distance. Went back up the hill, probably 40-50 yards. And this bird needed to again cross the fence line. There was no fence, but just he needed to come into the timber to be on our property. And I I stopped at one tree and thought this'll work. And I'm like, well, I can't really see a whole lot from here. I should probably get to this next big tree up a little closer to the corner. And I start creeping up to it, and I'm kind of looking around, like, you know, am I gonna have places to shoot? Where he's where's he gonna go? And I knew I was taking too long. Like I just I knew I needed to be making a decision, and I was having a hard time making a decision I was confident with. And anyway, I'm creeping up this tree. I'm about halfway between the tree I almost picked and the tree I was headed to, and I spot him out in the field, and I'm lacking I'm not hit at all. I see him out there like 75 yards coming. I'm like, crap. And he was sh he'd pop strut and drum and spit. I mean you could hear it and gobble. Well, I uh I just slowly dropped to my knees as slow as I could. He didn't see me. And he ended up coming right through the fence line at like 20 yards, just so close. But no shot, no shot, a couple big oak trees in the way, and finally I was like, okay, I got my gun raised up when he was behind some of these trees, and I was like, when he pops out around these trees, like I'm gonna shoot. Like, that's my chance. And he'd come out around them trees, and there was just a lot of brush. Like, I could see his head, but that was it. And literally 45 minutes prior to this, I just you know shot one and missed. So I wanted to make a shot count. So I opted not to shoot. Um I thought, well, you know, it's more open. He's gonna come down this trail that is right by me that I was calling from. And so I was patient and didn't shoot, and he took a few more steps and and headed into the thicker brush, actually, and instantly started putting. Like he didn't see me, he was just expecting that hen to be right there, I think. So then I had to call to try to calm him down, and it worked. He calmed down, but he just walked off where I couldn't see him. And I was patient, and I know I could hear him drumming. I just sat there and he was definitely drumming. Well, I got scooted up against a tree and got more positioned, and I called pretty hard at him and he gobbled, and he wasn't that far, but I there was no seeing him. Yeah, for a while I just I wasn't hearing anymore, and I decided he must have worked off. And so I decided to move back, move down the hill, and try to call at him from a different angle, you know, and got down there and he gobbled once, I think. It was kind of faint. I'm like, oh, he's working off. So I started headed back towards him. And I was getting ready to pop over this hill. I was just walking down the trail. I was like, you know what, I'm gonna let out a yelp. And I yelped and he gobbled right on top of me. Just over that hill. And I found the closest tree and sat down. I'm like, okay, here we go again. And I called and called and called and nothing. And I ended up getting up and moving again, and I got him and gobbled one more time, and he had worked off just a little bit, but he wasn't gonna come to my call again, you know. I he and he knew something wasn't right that first time and wasn't gonna do it again, so but either way, to go. Well actually, I don't want to skip this part, but I could then hear another bird across the road on the neighbor, but I we I can hunt property next to it. And so I gave up on that bird and heading that way, you know. That's a goblin bird, I'm gonna go after it. And I got kind of close to him. He's probably a couple hundred yards over on the neighbor, and I worked him for a little while, but he wasn't gonna come. He just I tried everything and he stayed put goblin. Um Thought I heard something. This is kinda risky recording this here as I'm actually turkey hunting. I let out a few yelps here before I started recording. Just never know, a bird might slip in here. But um I hope they do. I hope I do get interrupted, but I doubt it. But anyway, like it was just a great morning turkey hunting, you know. They they they were talking good. They did kind of just what you want to do, you come right into your lap, um, just some fun turkey hunting. Like I had two awesome hunts back to back and managed to mess them both up, but regardless, it was a good hunt, like that's why you do this, that's why we're out here, that's why I do some habitat work, that's why we trap, like to have a morning like that where you were on basically three goblin birds and kind of in walking distance of each other. Um, it just felt kind of special and felt like something I haven't felt in a long time. Um just feeling like maybe these are the good old days of turkey hunting, you know. Like last year it was really good for me. This year's been pretty good for me. I killed my bird open in the morning and should've had my bird today, which is the second day of the second week, so um just love turkey hunting and love being out here and while missing or messing up uh that hunt sucks a lot. There's a bright side of that and you get to hunt some more, you know, I'd have been done. And if every hunt went that way and they come in and I couldn't get a shot or I missed, like I'd stay at it. Because like that's killing them isn't all the fun, for sure. It's the it's the experience, it's the hunt, it's the memory of the whole morning that matters, and I like this morning with some good memories, and I just wanted to capture that. So but uh thank you guys for listening and I sure do appreciate it. Hopefully I can get a bird to come in here tonight. And if not, maybe I'll at least get one roosted for in the morning. See you guys next time.