Scored My Bird

[Hideandwatch]

I have been very anxiously awaiting the Spring Turkey opener, since this would be my first hunt. I put the birds to roost yesterday evening in a terrible wind. About a half hour before any light this morning I had my decoys setup in the wheat field 30 yds out from me.
As soon as it was light enough to glass the trees, I spotted a tom just to the east, high in a tree and wobbling trying to balance himself. Also there was another straight south of me on the other tree line. The first being out about 80 yards and the second being out about 120 yards.
I waited for flydown and began to use my slate call for a few yelps and purrs. I was looking in the direction that he flew down and was shotgun ready. I didn't see a thing. Then out of nowhere, he was attacking my jake decoy, just pouncing on it, then strutt'n and drumm'n about. I was still calling and thought for sure that I was busted. I waited till his rearend was facing me and shouldered my 870, which had 3, 3" winchester high velocity turkey shot #4's in it. As he came back around in his strut his head came up and BOOM! He flopped a bit and I carried my decoys off and him over my shoulder. What a great hunt. Now I will wait another week to fill my other tag

A friend from work will be out in the morning to get his Tom. Oh yea, almost forgot to say.....he has a 10 3/8" beard and weighed in at 19 pounds with 1 3/16" spurs..
Love to hunt!

 

[DOCDAN]

Congrats Hide

No such luck for me thus a.m. The turkey was lucky but not me. My 9 year old daughter and I got out this a.m. and set up off the fork of two old logging roads. Heard 2 different gobblers on their roost that responded to my soft tree yelps. I did a fly down cackle and they both gobbled and then a few minutes later they gobbled from the ground heading in my direction. They were close real quick so I turned towards the direction they were coming from and got my gun up. Sure enough one of them is coming down the road in full strut . My window for a shot was only about 3-4 feet wide but I guessed it would be only 30 yards or less for a good shot . Sure enough the gobbler was in my window and he raised his head . I shot from what I later stepped off at 28 steps and lo and behold the turkey did'nt go down . He kind of stood there saying "what the heck was that?". The other gobbler was clucking off the road in the woods and the one I shot at started to walk off. I left off a string off clucks , yelps and cackles but it didnt keep them in the area. After they left I got up and tried to find out what happened.At 18 steps from where I sat was a sapling about a half dollar in diameter size that I didnt see when I shot . This baby tree was broken in two by my shot! Thats why that gobbler got lucky!! and I was in shock!! I showed my daughter the tree and she said "dad you were supposed to kill a turkey , not a plant" ......Anyway thats the way it goes with turkey hunting. Again Hide congrats, thats a nice sounding bird!!!! Good luck next week.....DOC

 

[Chairman]

Woo-Hooo!!! WTG, H&W...

Congrat's on your first turkey. You da' man...

 

[Hideandwatch]

Thanks to both of ya'll!

Doc it sounds like ya had a chance at a good bird, but theres so dang many of them it will come again. Sorry to hear that ya missed out on this one, better luck next time for you and not the Gobbler.

We went back out this morning at dark thirty. Set up in the same place, only this time I wasn't toting the gun, Matt was. And this time we had 2 hens out with a jake.
Shortly after light, we heard three gobblers out across the treeline. I was doing the calling while Matt sat by watching with gun in hand. These guys were on the other side of a pretty deep creek, and they didn't seem to want to cross. I was glassing and calling and they were strut'n just the other side of the creek in the plowed field.
It didn't seem to matter if I called or didn't call, these boys just kept gobblin.
Then it quit for awhile and started to sprinkle a little. I called and no gobble came back. Then, they were gobl'n again and I called, it seemed the more I called the more they gobbled. Then they quit entirely.
We decided to pull the decoys and try and setup at the end of the treeline, on the other side of the creek. When we got over there, we could see 4 hens and 2 gobblers. Then the hens broke and run, and about right in the middle of them and us was a large coyote. They all ran through the trees and toward the plowed cornfield. We left and took the truck to the other side and tried coming in on them, by this time the wind was blowing and it was raining really hard. We went through the trees into the fescue and could see 2 toms and 5 hens. The hens busted us and ran. Then we were so wet actually soaked that Matt decided to call it a day. I didn't have any problem agreeing with him. Maybe next Tuesday will be better for me, I'll have the gun!