It’s mid April and turkey season is in full swing.  My son, John-William, and I found ourselves back at a ranch in Hondo, Texas for a weekend of chasing turkeys.  After my last hog hunt at this ranch, and the amount of big gobblers that I had seen (which I had to watch walk by due to the season not being open), I couldn’t wait to get back. 

We arrived at the ranch a little late on Friday evening, so without unpacking, we got our gear on, took a few practice shots with our Mathews bows and hurried into the woods.  Once we found a suitable location, we set up the Double Bull Matrix, got the decoys out and settled in for the afternoon hunt.  We managed to get a single gobbler to respond to our calls.  He seemed pretty hot, but for no apparent reason, he shut down when he got within a hundred yards of our set up.  We never heard or saw him again. 

My son is a hunting nut.  Even at the young age of five, he is already a 2-year veteran in the woods with me.  But he is young and still does not understand the value of time spent on stand.  An ill-timed (un-holdable) potty break ended our first evening a little earlier than anticipated.  I, by the way, am still learning the fine art of patience.

The next morning we spent some time trying to locate birds.  Turkey sign was everywhere, but we had a hard time getting birds to call back.  Even though it was midway through the season, the gobblers seemed to be “henned” up.  Try as I might, they just didn’t like my calling and were unresponsive. 

Our hunt then got a little side tracked.  Rounding a bend we spotted a group of hogs feeding under one of the feeders about 150 yards away.  John-William loves for me to hunt hogs (big mean pigs in five year old tongue).  He wanted me to shoot one of those hogs.  The truck was still hidden by the trees, and the wing was blowing into our position.  Conditions were perfect for a stalk.  I had John-William wait for me at the truck.  From his vantage point he could watch the entire stalk.

I threw on my Realtree leafy suit, grabbed my Mathews Switchback and the stalk was on.  It took me about 15 minutes to close the distance to within 30 yards.  The whole time hogs were grunting and squealing trying to jockey for every last bit of corn.  The wind was still good and the hogs never noticed me.  With arrow nocked, I eased around the last group of bushes.  My Bushnell Yardage Pro read 28 yards to the black sow I had chosen to harvest.  The Switchback was drawn, my TruFire release touched and the Carbon Express Terminator Hunter blew through the sow.  The Wac’em broadhead flew perfectly again.  The hog disappeared behind the row of bushes I was in and into the woods.

I waited a few minutes to collect myself.  Then I walked back to the truck to get John-William who was beaming from ear to ear.  He kept saying “Dad, you shot it, you shot it.  Let’s go get that mean big pig.”  His excitement was evident as he told the story of my hunt no less than three times before we made it to the spot where I had taken the shot.

Now came the fun part.  We had to find blood in dry dusty conditions and had several trails from which to choose.  After a search of fifteen to twenty minutes, John-William shouts out that he had found blood on one of the trails leading into the woods.  Sure enough, he had found a few drops of blood.  Thank goodness for young eyes.  Once in the woods, the hog had really started to spring a leak.  The blood trail was very easy to follow and the hog lay piled up not 50 yards from the shot.  After a few high-fives, we dragged the hog out for pictures, then loaded it into the truck and headed back to camp to clean and quarter the pig.

Unfortunately, that afternoon hunt, as well as the entire following day, was a bust for turkey.  It was the same as the previous hunts.  The big gobblers did not want to leave the hens.  We did get a few young gobblers and jakes to reply, but they would hang up and only come in so far before leaving when a real hen would start calling.

Even though we did not kill a turkey, I was able to spend a high quality weekend with my son.  And he now has more memories to feed his dreams of his next hunt.

Best Regards and Good Luck this Season

Tom Dade

Director – Advertising and Marketing

Bowhunting North America, LLC

This hunt was made possible in part by our sponsors:  

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