Attalee Taylor – April 2023
Booked a turkey hunt at Harpole’s Heartland Lodge two years ago for this spring. Three days and three nights. Had a great time, everyone there is super friendly, accommodations are great and the food is out of this world. I would recommend this hunt to anyone.
First day’s hunt was Monday morning. Sunday night it dropped into the upper 30’s and Monday morning there was a 15 to 24 MPH wind. It was cold Saturday night also. Needless to say, the turkeys were not talking. We didn’t hear or see a single bird. I think Matt, my guide was more upset than I was. This is turkey hunting,
We went to another spot on Tuesday with much better weather conditions. We heard multiple birds gobbling at sun up, saw a single hen, and Matt called in three jakes to within 10 yds. of the blind.
Wednesday, the third day of the hunt, we hit yet another location with many more gobblers sounding off at day break while on the roost. Very calm and very warm at about 65 degrees. After about 5/10 minutes of first light, hens started pitching down into the field in front of us, the first landing within 40 yds. of our decoys. With 6 live hens and 3 decoys in front of us, it only took another 5 minutes for the gobbler to show up. We first saw his white skull cap and the top of his fan over a little roll in the field at 170 yds. at the edge of the woods. It took him 10/15 minutes to cover the ground to the hens, never coming out of strut and never gobbling. At about 20/25 yds. I fired my first miss. At 30 yds. I missed him again. Fortunately, he was more interested in thumping our Jake decoy than my off target shots. I was able to get a third shot, now at about 37 yds. that put him on the ground. All this with a single shot shotgun. 21.5 lbs.. 2 beards 10 and 3 inch and 1 1/8 inch spurs. A textbook hunt, except for my misses.