Hunter whiffs on last gasp hunt
I wanted one last shot at a gobbler, so I caught the last of Oklahoma’s turkey season Monday and Tuesday at Osage Wildlife Management Area.
Osage WMA is a very large area divided into two units near Bartlesville and Pawhuska, Okla. I participated in a controlled muzzleloader hunt at the Western Wall Unit in October. The place intrigued me more for turkeys than for deer, so I made plans to come back for a late turkey hunt.
Instead of returning to Western Wall, I hunted the nearby Rock Creek Unit, which covers about 5,000 acres. It was the first time I’d set foot on the place, but I chose it because it has a camping area. I saw only one other hunter, and I was the only camper.
The weather was very windy, and the nights were very cool, a perfect combination for camping with the windows and vents open in my Little Guy teardrop. Monday was very hot in addition to being very windy. Tuesday was so cool that it felt like mid-November.
Because of time constraints, I had to combine hunting and scouting. On Monday, I heard a gobbler on the roost at dawn, but the
OPINION wind prevented me from pinpointing him. He went silent as soon as he hit the ground, and I did not hear another gobble for the rest of the day.
However, a neighboring landowner visited me at one of the parking areas as I prepared for a late afternoon hunt. He showed me a photo on his smartphone that he took the day before. The grainy image showed three gobblers strutting. He told me how to find the place.
“What time was that?” I asked.
“Right about now,” he said. I drove as near to that place as I could get and made a long walk away from the road. As I crested a rise at the back of the opening, I saw a gobbler strutting. I ducked into the tall grass that fringed the woods and called. I crawled back to the edge of the grass and saw the gobbler slowly walking in my direction. A decoy would have brought him in on a leash, but I left my decoys at home. A fan decoy would have done it, too, but I left that in the truck believing it was too risky to use on public land.
I called sparingly for a long time. After about 30 minutes, I heard clucks behind me, going away. The gobbler circled behind me through the thick woods, and he didn’t like what he saw from a shooting distance had I been facing him. On one hand, I should have known he would do that. On the other hand, I’ve killed a fair number of turkeys that took the easiest path. Sometimes no matter what you do, it’s wrong.
The next morning, I set up where I first saw that gobbler. Probably the same bird gobbled from close to where it gobbled at dawn the day before. He was a long way away, but I called him to within about 100 yards. Again, a decoy would have sealed the deal, but this time I sat in a position where I could see into the woods while covering the open approach. A very long silence ensued. As I pondered potential moves, a distant siren blared and elicited a shock gobble from about 70 yards deep in the woods. I purred and clucked, but the bird had a different destination in mind.
With a full schedule back home, I ended the hunt at 10 a.m. As I broke camp, a fellow named Brannon Atkins pulled in for a chat. We shared smartphone photos of turkeys and deer, compared notes about hunting turkeys and deer in Oklahoma vs. Arkansas, and then got to talking about pickup trucks, deer rifles, work and family.
For deer and hogs, Atkins likes the 6.5 Creedmoor, but he is very interested in trying the 270 Winchester Short Magnum. For coyotes, he likes the 204 Valkyrie, and believe me, there are plenty of coyotes on Osage WMA. They serenaded me from close proximity both nights.
Atkins told me about several dependable turkey hot spots on the area and explained how to find them.
“You were pretty lucky to work a bird,” Atkins said. “They never really came into the area this year the way they usually do.”
We traded phone numbers, and Atkins invited me back to hunt deer and turkeys with him.
I am inclined to accept his offer. I feel like I have some unfinished business at this place.