Turkey Hunting in windy conditions (updated with report and pics)

Find some bottoms or low areas where you can be sheltered from the wind if possible. Turkeys will be doing the same if the wind is blowing hard enough.

I’ve hunted them in Kansas and Nebraska with the wind blowing so hard you couldn’t hear your buddy speaking while he was standing next to you.

We would go find a creek bottom or hollow, get in there and blind call. Had a decent luck doing it.

Just saw you had a 6 YO. Setting up a blind with some decoys with kids aint the worst thing to do even if it isn’t windy

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Just saw you had a 6 YO

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I wouldn’t do this without pop up blind. He has push button call that I’ll be more generous to let him use since it’s windy.

We got it done. I’d post pic if I could figure it out. I have it loaded to imgur but won’t upload.

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Imgur is no longer supported

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It is just a pain in the arse to get it right.
The app doesn’t work. You have to copy the link to the pic from the website.

I’ll do a proper story when I get back to town.

We arrived about noon on Friday to outfitter camp west of Brady TX. Scouting report from previous weekend was good, 80% of hunters got their bird. Upon arrival we get gate code to the ranch and discuss that Friday afternoon (pre-front) was gonna be our best chance to talk to birds. We are assigned our section (30k acres) and take off after lunch.

While driving to our section we stop to observe road kill snake, not rattler, for my son which he enjoyed. We make it to the T in main road and head east, about a mile down that way we see two Tom’s full strut in the middle of the road and I’m feeling good about our chances because it’s 2pm.

Park at our spot and load game cart with popup blind, two chairs, shotgun, backpack. Hear gobbling immediately. Hell yes!

Walk half mile down the road and setup at a nice clearing a 100 yards from a tank. 6 yo asked within 30min of starting our sit when we’re headed back to the truck oof. We hear our first gobble within an hour, I respond with yelp and bird gobbles back and heads our way. I spot the Tom 60 yards through the brush on the road towards tank. I’ve never shot a turkey so I’m convinced this was gonna be it. Nope he moved on when he didn’t see the hen.

I’m calling every 20-30 min and see group of 3 Jake’s silently over my left shoulder. I hadn’t had any responses for an hour between 4-5p. So I shut up for 45 minutes and then hit the box call since the wind had picked up - three simultaneous gobbles erupted from behind us and I hand earphones to my son and get mine ready. I see the birds through a clearing with high grass heads only. They work towards us but stay on the left side of the blind and must have been 60-80 yards out through thick stuff directly at our 9 o clock when I purr on slate call and we get three simultaneous gobbles and they think they’ve found her. They start coming towards us and I get the gun ready. They come within 20 yards but stay on left side and I’m sitting on left side so there’s no way I can contort myself and get gun out window for a shot. Missed opportunity but what an adrenaline rush!

After that my son is begging to leave starting about 6:15, I bribe with pack of pokemon cards if he can stay for another hour and he agrees that’s a fair trade. So we sit and really don’t hear much more. We pack up at 7:20 and begin task of loading game cart and walking back. It’s a bummer because last shooting light is 8-8:15 so it felt like we were leaving at prime time.

We’re walking along and all of a sudden I see two toms in the middle of the road about 200 yards North of us. I wheel the cart off the road, grab my 20ga, 1 shell, my slate call, my son’s chair and we half the distance between us and them. I found a perfect piece of brush to set up in off the road that seemed like it was purpose built to be a blind, had almost semicircle I could tuck my son into on the n side of brush clump and I was sitting directly south side of him but had small pie plate shooting window at 45degree angle to the north with a few twigs growing into my window for adequate cover. Now that we’re settled I hit the slate call with a yelp and our group of gobbler and another group of gobblers sound off. At this point it’s 7:40 and light is fading with it being overcast. I give a few minutes and purr, only the closer group hears, they gobble and start coming in. My son has headphones on, is fidgeting in folding tailgate chair and trying to whisper to me when I see the two toms coming. When I realize I’m going to get a shot I slowly lift my gun and quietly click the safety off. They step into my shooting lane but we have a problem, both of their heads are lined up and I would kill two birds with one shot. I wait a painful 15-20 seconds while they are scanning heads up and can tell they are getting nervous. 1 bird turns and starts going back way he came, the second bird turns around and starts walking that way and it’s now or never BAM. I did it he’s flipping on the road. Like a mad man I circle around my son and charge the bird to make sure he’s not going anywhere. All I can say is that was pure euphoria to be there and share that moment with my son and so much better an experience to do it sorta run and gun versus out of the blind. Makes it even sweeter that his share of that bird was insisting we leave early.

10” beard and 1” spurs. Might have been spoiled with an absolute unit for my first turkey.

The snake, can anyone ID:


The blind:


The beard:


The bird:

…or one might argue that a pine snake is the southeastern version of a bull/gopher snake.

I’m going hunting for Florida pine snakes later this week!