Veterans and Turkeys
- Peter Maggenti
- May 11
- 8 min read
Jen Bretney, a mentor for the First Hunt Foundation, Pro Staffer for The Fallen Outdoors and a Marine Corps Veteran herself, posted online that she was looking for a place to take some Veterans on a Turkey Hunt. I immediately made a call and found a place for the hunt, and reached out to her. We figured out that between our two schedules, there was only one weekend available and it was the following weekend! She called Rob McMahon with The Fallen Outdoors and it was set up. Applications were accepted thru their Facebook page the next day. I am not sure how many applied, but we had space for 4 Veterans/Active Duty members for the weekend.
We ended up with two Navy, One Marine and one Coast Guard hunting that weekend. Three of the hunters were going to meet us at the ranch, and the others met me in Winters at Berryessa Sporting Goods, an easy place to find on the way and caravaned up HWY 128 to the ranch. The hills were still green with spring grass and the drive up along Putah Creek and around the lake was beautiful with lots of wildlife out and about in the warm spring sun.
We arrived a little too late to hunt, but early enough to scout and try to roost some birds. Jen and one of the hunters went up the canyon in the hills behind the front house on the ranch were a tom had been taken the weekend before, but they didn’t manage to see or hear anything. I stayed behind at the ranch house and waited for two of the hunters who were running late. The ranch owner was just getting back from rounding up cattle for the branding the following weekend and we got to visit and he met the hunters for the weekend before he had to head out to another ranch for another day of cowboying.
That evening we had venison spaghetti for dinner and got to know each other a little bit. The military members all shared stories and talked about things they had in common. It was great to see the immediate camaraderie amongst the military members with their shared common bonds. We hit the sack early so we could get an early start at 4:30 the next morning.
Rob took two of the servicemen and they headed to the North end of the ranch where they had roosted birds the evening before, while I took Jen and the two other servicemen to the South end to ‘deer camp’ a place I have seen lots of birds in the past.
The road back into Deer Camp runs thru a long canyon, that widens out into grassy meadows in-between narrow steep canyon walls covered in brush and oak trees, it also has several creek crossings along it. I had not been back on that road since the previous summer and the water was running pretty good. We managed the first 4 crossings without much issue, but a tree had fallen at the fourth crossing preventing us from continuing by vehicle from there, unfortunately we were quite a ways from Deer Camp still. I was a bit nervous at this point about finding birds as I had not scouted this canyon this year for birds, but I didn’t let on about my reservations. We decided to get out and hoof it from there to see what we could do to save this hunt.
The walking was easy as it is a relatively good road, still it was 20 minutes to camp by truck, by foot, over an hour and the canyon was filling with the gray light of morning already. We walked about 300 yards and heard a gobble up ahead! I knew there was a small meadow up there and we made our way cautiously towards it. We found some trees and brush to set up in at the end of the meadow and decided this was as far as we could go without being spotted. I snuck two decoys out quickly to the grassy opening about 20 yards in front of our hiding spot next too a couple of oak trees with a little brush around them along a fence line.
Jen set up with David at one oak tree while I set up with Zach about 10 feet away at another and I began to call. Instantly I had a gobble back from in front of us up a grassy hillside with scattered oak trees. Then more gobbles from the brush covered mountain behind us, but farther away. I don’t know how anyone else felt, but I felt the electricity of excitement for things about to happen. Within minutes a Hen flew down from the oaks in front of us and landed about 15 feet from the decoys, she walked down the hill and went thru the barbed wire fence and into the creek bottom behind us, seconds later a Gobbler flew down the same line and started towards the fence, he strutted and gobbled while ignoring the decoys. He was about 60-70 yards from us, just out of range to shoot. He started to head for the fence and I called to him, he turned and gobbled, strutted a bit more in the road as I occasionally called every time he looked away. He stayed at that distance for a few seconds, even tho it felt like forever. He did finally cross thru the fence, but came in our direction from the other side. There was some heavy brush next to Jen and David, so David was able to reposition without being seen and the Tom kept coming. He was finally close enough I could see him from behind their tree when he was at 20 yards. David took the shot and I could tell he hit the bird, but it flew about 15 yards before disappearing from sight, immediately however, we heard the ‘thud’ as it crashed to the ground and we could hear no thrashing so figured he was done for.
Immediately after the shot, I started calling again and within a few seconds, had birds responding as if the shot had never happened. Zach sitting next to me whispered, “there is another tom on the hill’ and sure enough, about 100 yards up the hill at the edge of the oaks was a Tom who gobbled and strutted as I called again. While I was concentrating on that bird, he slowly disappeared back into the oaks. But to my surprise, I heard a gobble behind us about 30 some yards. I turned slowly and saw 7 or 8 turkeys in the bottom behind us. They were all moving around almost in confusion so I couldn’t tell if there was a tom in the group or if it was all hens I was looking at. Zach was pinned on the wrong side of tree so he couldn’t see them. They all moved towards us and went into a little dip out of my sight, that’s when I told Zach to reposition so he could possibly get a shot, then they popped up and I told him to freeze. He had moved enough to see them in his peripheral vision, but probably wouldn’t be able to reposition for a shot. Those birds worked up to the fence line that was right behind us and I thought they were going to cross thru to our side, but they turned walked right towards us. At least one was a Jake and he was messing with the hens and running around and harassing them. They came to within 15 feet of me. They sensed something wasn’t right and turned and walked back down the hill to the bottom. I called to them again and got the Jake to give a little gobble, but they were leaving.
Some Toms were still on the hill and would gobble, but never came closer that morning. It was certainly an exciting 30 or so minutes. In retrospect, it was a good thing the road was blocked and stopped us from going where I had originally planned!
We headed back to the house and David stayed there to clean his bird and do a little fishing in the lake while Jen, Zach and I decided to head north on the ranch to see if we could bump into any more birds. We spent a few hours moving from spot to spot, stopping and calling, doing a little hiking, but no luck finding more birds that wanted to play that morning. We headed back to the house and had some food and decided to relax for a little while before going back out for the afternoon hunt. Rob returned with Mike and Jake and told us about their morning. They apparently had gone in their area a little too far and ended up directly under the roost tree spooking the birds off the roost. They got some great video of Turkeys pouring out of the tree overhead in the early morning light, but the birds scattered and while they would gobble back to Robs calls, they never quite got one into range for a shot. Unfortunately Mike and Jake had family obligations and could not stay later to continue to hunt and they had to leave before the afternoon hunt.
About 2:00 Jen, Zach and I headed back up the canyon to Deer Camp, but this time I took a different route and we managed to get all the way there. Rob and Dave stayed at the house and did some fishing in the lake. We walked around Deer Camp and up the canyon past it. I called some here and there, but no replies. We did see some tracks, but not many. We started back down the canyon slowly, stopping before each clearing and calling more. As we drove out of the second clearing down the canyon, I happened to look out to my left and spotted a tom sneaking thru the brush headed back to where I had called from minutes earlier. I stopped, kept the truck running and told Zach to roll out his side and sneak back up the road behind us to see if he could get in front of the bird as he came out the other side of the thick brush, and that is exactly what happened. Zach went about 10 yards back up the road, the bird came out of the brush and Zach managed to bag his first Tom! It may have been an ambush bird, but he had worked for it all day and earned that bird!
It was an honor to be able to help these Military servicemembers enjoy a weekend and to help two of them personally harvest their first Turkeys! I told Rob that I would love to be involved in doing more for these Veterans and First Hunt Foundation is all in with helping as well.
One of the lessons I had reinforced this weekend is to play the hand you are given and make the most of it. We didn’t get to where we wanted to go, but ended up where we needed to be. The other lesson was that just because a shot is fired, that doesn’t mean its all over. I was able to continue working birds after the first one was shot and we nearly had a double because of it.
So thank a Veteran or Active duty service member, the work they have done and continue to do make it possible for the rest of us to do all we get to do as free Americans.
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