After last year’s short and hardly huntable turkey season I had hopes for this year.  Everyone was confident cases would be dropping like a rock in April and May so things would be safe this year.  Of course Washington and Oregon are still on the increase having fourth waves but at least I’m fully vaccinated as of last Saturday so I went ahead and had my trip that I had booked with Joe for last season.  Even with the vaccine I had trepidation about the trip.  The counties over here are the fifth worst in the nation for new COVID cases at the moment, I hadn’t shot anything in six months and I hadn’t been out using my shotgun since last fall when Lira got hurt.   I did manage to get to the range and zero in my  Fastfire red dot but still felt a lot of concern that I’d end up missing or wounding a bird.   The whole thing tied me up in knots to the point where I was debating just stopping hunting altogether so I sort of needed today.

I hauled the NoBo up to Riverside State Park on Sunday and got camp set up in the late afternoon.  I organized my gear, set 3 alarms and tried to sleep.  The sleep part didn’t work out so well, I think I got about 4 hours even though my Apple Watch said I slept 4 minutes.  It was cold this morning when I got up, mid-30s and dropping.   I met up with Joe in Cheney and by the time we parked the trucks it was 32 out and likely to get colder as dawn approached.

We hiked into a ranch to a blind and started waiting for daybreak.   Tweety birds were going off all around us and there were a few faint gobbles off in the distance pretty much in every direction so who knew where turkeys would come from.  As it got light I ranged some landmarks so I’d know where I could shoot and we listened as gobbles and hens were getting close to us from behind where we had no windows.  I peaked out the side window at some point and there were three bearded turkeys there, I figured it was a group of Jakes but no, this was three bearded hens together which is something I’ll probably never see again.   The hens were feeding off to our side and then a big gobbler started coming in from the side.  Unfortunately the hens started walking in front of us and away and by the time the gobbler caught up he was at 40-some yards and in full strut the whole time.  He pointed his butt at us, fanned his tail and started walking off with the hens soon followed by two other gobblers.  No shot really and we watched as the fans disappeared down the trail.

Maybe 15 minutes later I looked back over to the side and there were two gobblers feeding.  I had to get off my chair and onto the ground to be able to get a shot and my movement was just enough that the lead bird lifted his head to look around.  I got the dot just below his head, squeezed, boom and the bird was dead before it hit the ground.  Gave him the old 3rd Degree for sure and one bird was in the bag by 5:40.

We listened to a distant gobbler for a while trying to decide if he was coming any closer when he just shut up completely.   I kept looking to the side since everything was coming from there.  Next thing I know Joe pokes me and points straight ahead.  The three original gobblers were back feeding about 20 yards from us, they came back in a gully and just materialized on top of this little knob.  Unfortunately I had blind poles and straps in the way, the birds were feeding close, I couldn’t move without spooking them and I just could not find a shot.  Finally the big gobbler in the back turned away from us and lifted his head a bit, it was the best shot I was going to get so I squeezed it off and down he went flopping like mad.  I gave him a bit of a shave up the back and took out a bit of tail but really a good shot given every I hung.  By 6:30 I’d punched both tags and turkey season was over for me basically in two hours.

I packed the one bird on my pack and hauled the other one over my shoulder and hiked back to the truck.  Back at camp I processed both birds and now have a trailer fridge full of turkey so I’ll be heading home in the morning.

I needed the confidence booster of having two good shots, one even being kind of tricky to pull off, and two very dead turkeys.  The red dot makes all the difference in the world, I had missed back in the day before I put it on since I wouldn’t shoulder the gun perfectly, now that isn’t as big a concern.   I tried a new choke this year too and had planned on using Hevi-Shot until I saw how crazy tight the pattern was and ended up back with Federal Premium 3rd Degree which patterned well and is built to work at close to long range.