I bet you’ve never seen anything like this 38-second Facebook video from Driven with Pat & Nicole. I know I haven’t.
The hunter and cameraman aren’t sitting in a pop-up ground blind, which certainly adds to the degree of difficulty. It appears they’re hiding behind some brush or a blowdown, but this does nothing in terms of helping draw a bow undetected. The shooter waits for the strutting gobbler to face straight away before drawing — smart. The gobbler doesn’t see the movement.
What isn’t clear is why the tom’s calm demeanor changes. The hunter gets to full-draw without alerting the bird, but something definitely changes its mood before the arrow is released. Maybe the cameraman or someone else in the group moved slightly for a better view?
Whatever the case, just as a deer can jump the string, this giant gobbler does the same thing — except instead of squatting quickly like a deer in preparation to flee, this tom begins flapping its wings to flush. As the video screenshots above show — look for the yellow vanes in the far right pic — the arrow is well on its way when it’s swatted from the sky by the bird’s wing.
Had the hunter been shooting a broadhead designed for body shots, the arrow might have penetrated the wing and still struck the tom somewhere. It’s impossible to say. What is clear, however, is this massive fixed-blade turkey broadhead, which is designed for head/neck shots only, simply bounces off the wing.
According to the Facebook post, the tom “was completely fine and didn’t know what happened. He even gobbled a couple times as he worked off.”
PS: Be sure to turn up the volume on the Facebook video for best viewing.
