From the Quaker Boy Forum

From the Quaker Boy Forum

. . . but back to the original question: What's in your vest?

I'm ready to hunt Saturday with Angus, and what I've got in the bag is probably what I'm going to start with when my Opening Day starts on the next Saturday.

Here's what's in it:

Quaker Boy calls:
My Grand Old Master box call
Easy Yelper
Carbon and Acrylic strikers from my Triple Threat scratch pot

Homemade Calls
Aluminum Scratch Pot with ash striker
Slate over Glass Scratch Pot with purple heart striker

Locator Calls
Crow, Hawk
(I do my own owling)

Mouth Calls
Old Boss Hen and OBH Magnum
Gobblin Fever
. . .and a few I have no idea what they are or where they came from.

Non-call stuff:

6 rounds of Federal #4 Magnum Turkey loads 12GA 3"
Emergency Whistle
Lockback knife
License, tags, and pen for filling out same.
Pin-on compass
Flashlight, 2 AA cell, with change of batteries
2 small foam pads-- 1 for back, 1 for butt, attached to bag with carabiners

In the musette bag:
walkie talkie-- I switch to a cellphone when I'm all alone
Toilet Paper
4x6 leaf-cut camo blind --2sided camo (brown/green)
3 dekes -- 2 hens and a jake
Stakes for same
Hunter Orange turkey bag
My lunch, and a book


The "purse" goes on first on my right side. I wear it backwards from its original intent, so that the buckle is in front. That way I can slip out of it when necessary.

The musette bag-- (I've modified it from a backpack to a shoulder bag) goes over the other shoulder and rides in the middle of my back. It too has a buckle that can be undone in the front.

I now look at my setups as an PLAN A or PLAN B situation:

PLAN A: Plenty of time to set up, get settled in, put up the blind, lay out the calls.

PLAN B: Hit the dirt, lose the gear, do a John Kerry through the ground litter. Slither into a shooting position with just a mouth call stored in my shirt pocket.

A vest under PLAN B sucks. With my two bags, if I can undo the buckles, I can crawl away from it silently. I can also just drop the musette with the big bulky stuff and come back for it later, and still have my calls and ammo.

An unforseen encounter with a gobbler coming up on my backside got me thinking about PLAN B several years ago. I'd set up on a hillside looking down with a couple of bushes hiding me. There were several gobblers, and they all seemed to be coming up a small gully in front of me. All of a sudden, I had a gobbler come up from behind and start down the hill towards me. I had already left my vest behind, so that I could sneak into this position. At just the right moment, I rolled out of where I was and was laying prone when the gobbler poked his head up about 10 yards up the hill.

He was close enough that I doubt the shot had separated from the wad. I found only a couple pellet wounds.

If I had been in a vest with the cushion trailing behind and all that gear out in front, I would have never been able to make the move. For one thing, the noise of all the clanking would have been tremendous. For another, I probably would have crushed a call or two. From that point on, I figured something besides a vest was in order.

By the way, prone shots with a 12 GA magnum turkey load will put a serious hurt on you. You are seriously tied to the ground, and the butt of the shotgun is seriously tied to your shoulder. The classic sitting turkey stance absorbs a lot of recoil by letting your shoulder rock back. Prone delivers it all to the the top of your shoulder. I was feeling that shot until Labor Day.