Opening Day Double Turkey Hunting in Indiana

 

Dan Richardson set up a Stealth Cam on a grassy flat way back in the timber prior to opening day of the Indiana turkey season and was shocked to find over 5000 photos of turkeys in a month’s time. The birds were showing up from 10:00am-7:30pm. Here’s Dan’s recap of how things went down for he and his son while turkey hunting in Indiana…

It appeared we had found a strut zone with the honey hole we had placed the camera on. It was like gold for the turkey hunter. I put a ground blind up one week before the season and was getting lots of photos of gobblers in front of the blind.

turkey hunting in indiana Dan-2-strutters
Stealth Camp photos confirmed exactly where the guys needed to be set up on opening day.

The opener found me and my son, Dalton, sitting in the ground blind waiting out the birds. He was up to bat first since he was after his first turkey with a bow. We heard birds way off in the distance, confirming as to why the birds weren’t showing up on camera until mid-morning. We only had one hen show up by 8:0oam.

At 10:00, while eating lunch, we heard a bird gobble. The next gobble confirmed he was getting much closer. Soon, we had a beautiful gobbler in full strut march right into the HS Strut decoys. He was just 8 yards away as Dalton waited for the shot opportunity. When the bird turned away, and Dalton felt comfortable coming to full draw, he made his move. The bird was walking away when Dalton made the shot. It was a great shot, I was so proud! Hugs and high-fives followed before Dalton decided to take his bird out to get it in the Yeti cooler.

I decided to stick around a bit and see if I couldn’t get a second bird to slip in and check out our decoys. Several hens showed up later that afternoon around 6:30. Soon after I heard the noise of something coming through the thicket behind me. I peeked out the window to see a huge Tom making his way in my direction.

turkey hunting in indiana - Dan-Turkey-Double
Opening day double for the Richardson boys!

By the time I got the camera on and everything ready for the shot, the gobbler was already in the decoys and looking for the live hen that had been hanging out around our setup. He wanted to get to the live hen, but couldn’t handle the HS Strut Jake decoy on the scene. He went into full strut and marched back to the decoys to address the Jake. At 7 yards I let the Black Eagle Zombie Slayer fly. It found its mark and sent the gobbler flopping and rolling, almost taking out my decoys.

I called Dalton and told him to bring his bird back for photos and to close out an interview on our opening day double while turkey hunting in Indiana. It was a blessed day, for sure – a father and son hunt I will never forget.

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