First Archery Turkey on Camera

So it came down the to last day of the hunt. My camera man and I had hunted every day of the 5 day Wisconsin turkey season. This wasn’t our first season bow hunting turkeys, but it was our first season getting a few archery kills on film.

After getting to full draw with two toms on the second day of the hunt, we had limited success getting toms to come in to range of the bow. With some extremely close calls over the next few days, Sunday (last day) came with no beard or spurs to add to the collection.

After hunting the morning with no success, we headed back the the house to take a lunch break. We headed back out at about 2:00 in the afternoon. After a few setups with responses from only hens and jakes, we decided to try one more location.

At about 3:00 we we walked in a thick patch of woods from a corn field on the bottom. After a brief discussion with my camera man, we ended up setting up along road that goes from the bottom corn field to the top corn field. We were about 30 yards from the top field, and from this spot my camera man would be able to see any turkeys coming in well before I would be able to.

After doing some calling and having a hen walk in behind us, Mike said, “There’s a tom coming in, FAST.” We were tucked under a pine tree with a lot of cover and I would have to wait until he was 10 yards away to even have a shot at taking this tom. Because I could not see much of the bird, I said “Mike, let me know when to get to full draw.” After Mike gave me the go ahead, I came to full draw and waited. And Waited. And Waited some more. It may have been only 10 seconds, but it seemed like forever waiting for the tom to come into the shooting lane. I sat there with my pin steady waiting for him to make the fatal mistake.

Two more steps, come on, just two more steps. Of course, turkey hunting never goes as expected. As the tom was a little uneasy, he started to side step, not coming into shooting lane I was hoping. I needed to make a quick decision. After a quick swing of my bow, my arrow pierced the tom just above both legs and left him dead as doornail 10 yards from where he stood. Only a few hours before the season ended, I had finally shot my first archery turkey on film.

Clynt kistler