Forget beach body just go turkey hunting!!

[bowmike]

My wife and I are going to start excising and such more. She ordered some 21 day fix program. I was looking at the health app on my I phone. It tracks your steps in a day and such. Now I Imagine that some of the data can be a little skewed but it is pretty close. I did the research and found that an average persons step while walking is 2.5'. There are roughly 2,000 steps in a mile.

Here is a snapshot of my year in terms of steps. I have a desk job so you can see that from March to end of June I have a huge spike in steps. You can see a spike from October to January as well when I am archery and grouse hunting. I wonder why I am up every morning possible scouting for turkeys in that period of time, and hunting them with or without tag until the season closes.




Above is the snap shot of my year.


Now this is the data from the first day of gobbler this year. I had set up on some birds I had scouted all season and knew their patterns. There were 3 in front of me and 2 down below me. Well a guy shot one super early across the large field I was hunting. A guy shot the big old long beard down below me. And a guy came and cracked 3 shots off the roost on the birds I was hunting. So I took off running and gunning. Here are the stats from the first day.













When I got back to the escape on the first day I was DEAD! My arms were killing me from lugging the 870 and my feet and legs were burning. When I tallied all of these up I can see why. 22,990 steps on the first day which equates to 11.495 miles. I am betting there could be a margin of error but I believe it. I am a run and gun type of guy if I am not getting on birds.

Lets go to Wednesday May 6th. THe day I got my jake. I hit up a new area I had not really scouted but had birds in the past. It was pretty much running and gunning all morning until I finally heard a gobble way out there. You can see the spike in steps when I heard the gobble and then the spike in steps when I took off for the escape to get to work on time.  Here is the May 6th data.





IF you look at from 6:12-6:32 I was trucking to get into position to get the gobble I heard. You can see my steps slow down as I got closer to where the birds were. Then you can see my steps increase as I am running back to the truck. This day logged 8,932 steps or 4.466 Miles.

Here is May 7th when I shot my gobbler.



THese numbers look like a lot off running but I think because I was going up and down some pretty steep mountains that day I took more steps than normal. This was not a long walk but still counted 4252 steps. You can see when I took off after I killed the gobbler and was booking It back to the truck. This was 2.126 miles.

I did not factor in the steps that I was turkey hunting from scouting until tagged out but I will. I am pretty excited to have this data and cant wait to see how many miles I put in to be successful. But with these 3 days alone I logged, 18.087 miles.

I know a lot of you guys are not for todays technology but this really opened my eyes to a couple things.

1) I am not a guy that can sit if I am not hearing birds

2) I probably passed up a pile of silent toms

3) I do a heck of a lot of walking to be successful in turkey season.

Hope you enjoyed this little snap shot of data that was collected and I didn't even realize it. I will tally it up from mid march until I was tagged out, and then tally how many miles total I put on in the season.



And just so this post isn't all numbers and garbage here are the two birds I was rewarded with after 20 plus miles of walking in turkey season.



Jake with a 4.875" beard



Gobbler with a 9.25" beard

Thanks for the read.

[SinGin]

I have a statement and a questio.

First, I am never turkey hunting with you no matter how much you beg me I dont walk that far in a year.

And the questoin is, what is the name of that app?

[bowmike]

THe invitation is there if you want to join. It is not always like that but this year was a weird one for finding birds that would talk. This was all PA public ground.

It was just the health app that came with my I-phone. I didn't even know that it was automatically tracking my steps. It is just showing up as health on my window.

I really want to work on being patient but my main game with hunting gobblers is striking the bird and working him in. I got the best of both worlds as the long beard was an "off the roost" type hunt and the jake was running and gunning.

I am also going to buy a better pair of boots for next year. Hoping that with this 21 day fix program my wife ordered I can drop some weight off and be back to my fighting shape by archery season. LOL

[nativeks]

Diet is huge. I dropped 22 lbs from Jan 1-May 1. Then I went back to training and fell off the wagon. I am back to 264. Started dieting again yesterday. Initial goal 240. I hit 244 the first time. I typically loose a lot during waterfowl season.

[Rick Howard]

So... I can tell her "I do HAVE to go hunting.  It's for my health."  But now I can prove it! 

[albrubacker]

So... I can tell her "I do HAVE to go hunting.  It's for my health."  But now I can prove it! 

Sounds like a plan.

[mgm1955]

So... I can tell her "I do HAVE to go hunting.  It's for my health."  But now I can prove it!

[catdaddy]

TMI

[THattaway]

My flip phone has pedometer tool, have tracked miles the last few springs. Walked 162 miles in April this year. Average around 140 miles most years and losing 15lbs during turkey season. A man can get down to his fighting weight quick toting a shotgun, a 20lb or so vest and living on ham sandwiches, apples and water for 20+ days. 6' and gained back up to 192lbs. now so not sure I had too awful much to loose to start with.