POST HERE ~ Turkey Contest Stories and Pictures 2012

[dan]

Start sharing your stories and pictures for the 2012 Turkey Contest here ~ IN THIS THREAD.

**** Please just post your hunt stories and pics****


****As much as we love comments please save those for a different thread / post. That will make things much easier when we all come back here to go thru them for VOTING purposes later on****.


After the season on a date not yet announced we will invite the 500 club members of this site to vote on whom they feel should win the prizes.....

Voting will be based on the size of the turkey, the hardness of the hunt, the hunters ethics, the weapon used, etc...

Please keep that in mind when telling your story. Although big turkeys often win, in past years deer contests, we have seen a young man whom shot a fork horn win, and a button buck shot by a foreigner who traveled all the way across the ocean to hunt our much celebrated whitetails.

So enter every turkey you shoot if you like. If you shoot more than one and want to edit your story let me know and I can help you with that. All turkeys legally taken are eligible regardless of species or sex.

Good luck to everyone & Congratulations!!

[spring creek]

I located a couple of birds last weekend at a nearby lake. One that I found seems to believe he is Carl Lewis or something. He comes off the roost with a destination in mind. Our season opened Saturday. I was sitting about 100 yards from him when it started to get daylight. He was there but left out going away from me (he went the other way last weekend). I stayed awhile longer but had plans to go to another area that afternoon. I had a line on some big gobblers up there. Well, to make a long story short, we spooked a bird by walking up on him before knowing he was there and went to other side of the highway. I hit the call and a hen answered and not long after that, a gobbler sounded off. Well, we worked awhile but he was across a bottom and went out the other side. Just before dark, I heard 4 more birds. One was off to the left a bit, 2 were nearly together and the other a bit to the right. This has potential!!
The next morning found me with a friend up there. He is a much more experienced turkey hunter and I figured I could use all the help I can get. We settled in pretty early and waited for things to start. The bird that was to the left fired up and was hammering. I made the comment that I wished he would be quiet for a bit because I could hear traffic on the highway. Well, you guessed it......BOOOOMMM!!! Someone shot him off the roost. AAAHH...the joys of public land hunting!! So, we let things settle again. About 8:00, "B" whispered that there was a hen right in front of him. I turned around and saw it and 2 more birds. Only thing was; they were jakes. I hit a soft call and here they came! I should have waited and let them walk off and shift around because they were on my hard right and could not get turned around to shoot left-handed. So, we waited some more. About that time, we hear a 4-wheeler hauling it down a gravel road in front of us...a gravel road??? According to the map, we were on a dead end road. HMMM...and then here came a truck. We wereable to get glimpses of it and decided to see just where this road was. Turns out it was about 300 yards away. So, we eased back to where we were and heard a gobbler in fron of us and hit the ground. We (OK...B was calling now) worked him for a bit and he semed to get a little further down the draw he was in so we decided to take up a little ground on him. We eased up the trail until we came to a ridge and heard him just over it. So, it was play like a pine tree again. This little gane went on for 45 more minutes, he would go up the draw and then back down it. I'm sure he was strutting all the time. Finally, he just could not stand it anymore and topped out on the ridge and I was lucky enough to get the drop on him. I believe he was a 2 year old bird. Weighed 17 lbs. 8 inch beard and his spurs were kind of weak. About 3/8" on 1 side and a hair over 1/2" on the other.

[spring creek]

How do you post pictures??

[dan]

How do you post pictures??

Click here for instructions:

viewtopic.php?f=28&t=10695

If you can't figure it out, pm me.

[spring creek]

Dan, feel free to edit this as needed to tidy the spot up. Thanks for the help!

[Ronin]

I shot this one at 8:10 AM opening day on public land. It was the fourth spot I tried.I had a couple other hunters in the area and this tom came in with 4 other ones. I roosted the birds the previous night. Got him with my SBE 2, 3 1/2 inch hevi shot 30 yards..

[DiamondEdge]

Before the youth opener my dad and I talked and he told me that we would be hunting near Mr. Infalt’s house. We decide that I needed to wake up around 4am, but I must have been really excited because I ended up waking up at 3:25, and I made sure my dad was up too. We left our house at 4:15 and had set up our blind by 5:30 just as the sky was turning grey. Shortly after we set up, we heard toms calling all around us, 3 on the left, 1 in back, and a couple off on the right of us, my dad called back and they would gobble at us but we couldn’t get them to come towards us, the last time that they called back was 7:30. So while we were waiting in the blind, Dan stopped by and told us to stay till a little past 9 and that if we didn’t see anything to come by his house he would show us some spots to try.
We didn’t hear anything so at 9:06, I asked my dad to pack up and head to Dan’s house. He took us to his first spot in a densely covered wooded area, and walked a while then stopped to call, right off the bat both toms and hens called back, so Dan had me set up looking up on a ridge with my back to a tree. As I was sitting there, Dan kept swapping calls with them and a Jake finally came in, but not where we were expecting, right behind me, to the left, 10 feet from Dan & my dad, So Dan says, “Turn and shoot Luke,” so I got up and turned around, but I couldn’t find it fast enough and it ran away. I was so disappointed. So we went to a new spot crouching, crawling, and stalking the turkeys, it was tough to keep up with Dan the way he moves so quick through the woods but I held up just fine. Just over a hill, Dan called again and got a response so we got set up, just then a hen came over the ridge but got scared and flew away because it didn’t see another turkey she saw me! So we decided to crawl a little farther when Dan said, I see them, run up there and shoot, so I ran but I didn’t set myself and I shot and missed, there were 3 decedent toms, but I thought I hit 1 of them and Dan thought he saw it walking at the bottom of the hill so we went down there and me and my dad went into the swamp and Dan tried to flush it out, no luck though, so we decided to head north out of the swamp and back into the woods. I was so disappointed and thought I wouldn’t ever get to shoot one.
We walked for a while and Dan decided to call again, once again both hens and toms called back, so we got set up and I remember thinking to myself this is it my last opportunity I know I’m going to get one I just knew it. So Dan calls and calls and calls, we kept on hearing them call back until they started to rustle the leaves loudly as they were walking towards us, but then they stopped before they got to where I could see them. So Dan did the same, and rustled leaves with his hands, then all of the sudden it seemed like they could no longer resist and walked up over the hill and I saw a Jake with its blue head walk up over the ridge but I didn’t have a clear shot so I waited patiently, which is really hard for me as my dad (Forgehunter) can tell you, anyways, so I waited to see if it would pass through the fork in the tree, and it did as my instincts told me. The Jake walked into a clearing about 25 yards away, so I aimed for the head and I shot, one Jake flew off to the right a hen ran off to the left, I thought I shot the one that flew off, but Dan told me to go get my bird (a couple times) and it is a good thing he did because if he didn’t I don’t know if I would have seen my bird, cause I was so focused on the one flying away! After seeing my Jake flapping around I ran up to it, once I got up to it, I was so happy and relieved to have shot my first Turkey! Actually, it was my first animal ever. Thank you again Dan! I can’t wait to go hunting again! i had a blast and learned a lot from you!


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[robert richer]

Vernon county bow turkey, whew finally.....a bow turkey!

arrowed Thursday April 12th 2012



26 lbs

9.0 " beard

7/8 spurs

New Helium bow
65 lbs
Rage 100 grain

30 yards

More pics and story to come...

I will enter story once I return from Minneapolis work trip.....

[robert richer]

Story coming next.........see previsous description please..

thanks.

Story;

While the weather was not bad the turkeys didnt want to cooperate, no gobbles, etc. My hunt was April 11th through the 14th. Finally 3 to 4 days of vacation, its been a long 2012 year already.

Wednesday morning we stayed in the blind for several hours and watched a couple of hens skirt the blind, they didnt like the blind or seemed not to like our set. We removed the tom and re-situated the two hens, stil nothing..We then later that after noon sat back in the blind and did some calling, nothing....removed the hens and did more calling, nothing!!! Well we decided that evening (wednesday) to remove the blind and consider a new set up the following morning, without the blind. So at the end of the day on Wednesday although a beautiful day, no opportunity to arrow a turkey. The following morning we decided to go out without the blind, without the decoys and scout with the bows. Stalk and hunt, we had plenty of ground to cover. Several distance gobbles but no permission to access the property, tried a little calling, nothing came. Went back to the farm and ate lunch and put together a plan to possible seperate and cover more ground. I went one way and Steve went the other, we were to meet sometime around 5:30 p.m. to head back, by the big oak tree,etc...

We met there at / approximately 5:30 p.m. and had a snickers and apple. Decided to head out and go back to the farm to eat dinner. We silently marched back to the farm and upon and an opening between to fields Steve glassed two toms strutting with a hen. Steve went ahead and continued to call with hen yelps to hopefully bring the pair closer, well they were. The unique part there was a third gobbler between steve and the two toms. Steve didnt see this tom stutting and moving closer or to our direction. I moved closer to steve who just laid down his bow to make calls and I whispered that there is a tom about 45 yards out and coming our way. He crawled backwards and put me in front of him and positioned me for the shot. What a friend, right? So as the tom was moving towards me I positioned myself , drew my new Helium while he was at 40 yards, held steady and waited for a clear shot. At about (to find out 33 yards) 35/40 yards I held my 3rd pin just alittle low and let fly.....SMACK.....turkey did a little break dancing and a little flopping of the wings...........all was good!!! Turkey down....first with a bow, my new bow!

In addition to the combination of right equipment, archery gear and one of the best friends ever and a knowledge of the bird's habitat and anatomy, I believe one more part of the ingredient is "confidence". A bow hunter like myself has to have confidence, and that comes with the best preparation a person can give himself.

Attitude is everything and good friends.

That is my story.........

[UntouchableNess]

Some of this might sound familiar as the story starts with my "won the lotto" post on this forum.

It went:
"There is this one piece of property I have been driving by for years, seems like there is always a flock of turkeys on it. Back in January I drove by, it was covered in turkeys and I vowed I'd find out who owns it and try to gain permission.

I went on-line to the tax assessor website and about screamed with joy when I saw the owners name. I'd asked him to pheasant hunt another property of his (he owns 2,000 acres, all spread out over two counties) about twenty years ago so I figured my odds of gaining permission were good. I chatted with him for 2.5 hours on the evening of February 14, at the end of which he said to hunt whatever/whenever I want on his land.



I haven't been this pumped about spring turkey season for some time."

And the story continued:

A month before season, I headed to buy my spring turkey licenses. I very briefly debated on whether to get two archery tags right away or wait and maybe pick up a fourth season gun/bow tag. It didn’t take long for me to make the decision to get two bow tags, as I had hopes and dreams of getting a double. Only way to do that is to have two tags in hand.


I arrived a little late the morning of April 17 (couldn't take off work on Monday the 16th). There are some grain bins on the west end of the property, thought I would park my car there. I pulled in the drive, decided I should hunt the east end, so backed out of the drive and headed east. I parked the car on the side of the road, got out and heard turkeys gobbling on the west end. So back in the car I go and park among the grain bins. I got set up on the west end and later in the morning, I watched birds run across the east end, figures! I had to take the dog to the vet for shots at 11:30 so I cut the morning hunt short. I decided to go back in the afternoon and set up on the east end.

Looking up from reading a book at 2:30 pm, I had two toms pop into the field off the river bottom, then go back. They reappeared 100 yards further west. About that time a hen ran across the chisel plowed corn field between us and headed for the NE corner of the field. That started them my way. The hen moved off on them so I tried to call them in. With the hen gone, they slowly started working my way from about 200 yards out. I tried to stay calm, but being the first encounter with turkeys this year and the length of time it took them to come in, I started getting jacked up. I rushed the shot and just trimmed feathers on one. They didn't freak out too bad, walked down to the NE corner where the hen had disappeared.

When the first two toms were almost to my decoys, I had heard a tom gobble across the road behind me, so I decided to hang around after the miss. Pretty soon, here comes a hen into the field after crossing the road. The two toms I shot at started strutting (she was between us). Then I see two toms enter the field where the hen just did. I yelped a couple times and they headed my way.

Their path took them past the blind at 10 yards, I arrowed the dominant tom (he'd been strutting more than the other) with a G5 Montec tipped arrow. He only flopped a little, but his buddy took the opportunity to jump on him. This brought the other two toms I'd shot at earlier running. I missed the first tom that mounted the dead one (lots of movement going on with him attacking the down bird and two other toms rushing in), but I arrowed the next tom I shot at (one of the first two) with a Wasp Bullet tipped arrow. When I hit him, the other two toms started attacking him. If I had more tags, I might have been able to fill another. The second tom was able to move yet, so I quickly jumped out of the blind to run him down (which spooked the other two toms off, but I didn’t care as I was tagged out). I did not want him making it out of the corn field, so I ran at him on an angle that made him move towards the center of the field as he tried to flee. I caught him fairly quickly and rung his neck. It was a very fast paced hunt for a minute or two.


Bird#1 (on the right below)
10.5” beard
Right spur = ¾“
Left spur = 7/8”
Weight 24.5 lbs
Bird#2
11” beard
Right spur = nub
Left spur = 1”
Weight 20.5 lbs

[UPbowhunter]

Well after a very slow youthday this past saturday, I was able to get out this morning and try and get one on our opener. Right after fly down, this guy heard my first call of the morning in another feild and came into my set. After atacking my jake decoy, he gave me the shot I needed, he was headless after the bullhead arived. He went 22lbs, had two beards an 11" and a 7 1/4". His spurs were 1 1/4" and 1 1/8". He was by far my best bow bird. I was lucky enough to catch it all on video. Now to get my son on a bird, and my nephew from the U.P. in a couple of weeks. Thanks for lookin guys.

[UntouchableNess]

After a 7 hour drive, Tony and I arrived in South Dakota early afternoon on Saturday, April 28. We hoped to get a quick afternoon hunt in and were set up around 5 pm. We were after Merriam turkeys, the whiter the color the better.

We busted some birds on the way in to set up, but figured it was the best we could do with the time we had left that day.


We saw a string of jakes walking along the edge of the field in front of the blind, called to them; they turned around and went back the way they came. Later, we called a jake in and when he got into the clearing and saw our set up, he spun right around and left. We had carried bows in and no shots were offered. We decided to tear down and get out of there before it got completely dark.

We headed to a spot where there might be a flock of turkeys roosted and sure enough, we counted about 11 birds up in huge old dead cottonwood on a river bottom. We decided we would come back the next morning and set up close to the tree and hopefully call a tom away from the group after fly down. The cottonwood was down on a flat next to a river and we planned on setting up next to a gap in the plum thicket between the roost tree and the green pasture the birds were frequenting. We got there in the dark the next morning, carried the bows, blinds and decoys in and got set up. We heard some gobbling after sunrise, but nothing really responded back to our calls. After not seeing anything for a couple of hours, I snuck out of the blind to peer over the edge of the shelf we were on. The birds most likely flew down from the tree into the river bottom, then headed straight east, never able to see our decoys.

Next plan was for a little run and gun action, hope to see birds out in the fields and try to sneak in close enough to call them the rest of the way. Since the jakes were so shy the first night and we did not see any birds the first morning, I was ready to leave the bow in the vehicle. We drove to a place that had some valleys with trees. We dropped into a valley and a turkey gobbled back to a crow call. We headed after him up the draw, but he wasn’t the most cooperative, we never saw him. He must have had hen/s with him, as did most of the birds we encountered. After spending the day hunting this way, we decided to go back and set up on the cottonwood, hoping to catch the birds on their way back to roost.

We get back there and a large flock was out in the green pasture feeding. We dropped down into the river bed and tight rope walked the bank to get down to the cottonwood, then snuck up to sit at the base of a couple of trees, hoping the birds would come by us. I chose the left gap in the plum thicket, Tony the right. About the time we set down, the wind picked up and some nasty clouds rolled in from the west and treated us to a nice cold shower. It blew over quickly though and I was hoping it would get the birds thinking about roosting. Wasn’t long and I saw a string of birds working past Tony. One stuck its head up and I thought for sure he was busted. So did Tony and he hammered it.


While running and gunning during the day, we found a field that always seemed to have birds strutting in it. We decided to sneak in early Monday morning and set up before sunrise. I woke up at 4:39 am, started getting ready to roll. We drove out there and hiked back in, set up in the dark, hoping we placed the blind in the right spot. It wasn’t long and we started hearing hens calling and toms gobbling from the roost, things were looking up. It wasn’t long after sunrise and the birds started streaming into the field. We were in the northwest corner of a pasture, there was a river along the north, so we were in a natural funnel.

From the first days’ shaky start, I had decided to carry the Winchester Model 37A single shot 12 gauge 3 inch chamber 30 inch full choke shotgun I bought new in 1976 when the local hardware store went out of business. I figured I’d be the back up to Tony’s bow. There was a 2 year old tom in one of the first groups of birds that went by us (within gun range) and I was severely tempted, but I didn’t want to bugger up the set. Tony commented that it was the first time he had passed up a tom, my response; “Me, too!”

With all the birds working the field, we hoped patience would pay off. An old hen came into the decoy set and took exception to the DSD hen. She tried to peck the eye out of the DSD hen for so long that she got tired and decided to take a nap next to the decoy, 5 yards from the blind. We were so close I could see that her beak was so worn at the tip it was clear. She woke up and started pecking on the decoy again.

About this time, a 2 year old tom drifts in and decides he doesn’t like the DSD jake. He starts doing the posturing and bumping, I look to Tony and it is clear it’s not a bird he wants to Bullhead. The 2 year old starts acting jumpy and in comes a more dominant tom. I look to Tony: not white enough, he says (we are in Merriam country). I looked and saw the spurs, held my fingers about an inch apart at the back of my heel for Tony, which was what it took for him to decide to give it a go.

The 2 year old had taken refuge at the corner of the Doublebull blind when the older tom came in: we could have reached out and hit him with an arrow. Tony couldn’t see him, but he saw Tony draw and startled. This alerted the older tom that was now stomping on the DSD jake. All the commotion distracted Tony and the rushed shot missed. The older tom took two steps and popped his head up. I let the 12 gauge with a load of 5 shot bark and he dropped where he stood, maybe 15 foot from the blind. The roar of the gun essentially cleared the field. I crawled out and retrieved the bird and did a little decoy maintenance, 8 am now.

Around 10:45 am we were thinking about tearing down the set up, but then saw a tom with some hens were working towards us. They were paralleling the fence line along the river, moving from the far east end of the field to our northwest corner. When they got closer, we could see he had three hens that were ahead of him. They could see our decoy set, hear our calls, but wanted nothing to do with it. Two of the hens slipped off, so he stuck with the last hen, strutting all the time he followed her along the fence row. Back and forth they went, never coming closer. We were discussing whether to crawl to the south and circle around to head them off. Also, we thought about cutting the fan off of the bird I shot earlier (had some wire and a stick to spread it out) and belly crawling towards them. Or maybe just wait it out…..

Waiting it out won, so we watched them start back east along the fence. About this time, we heard a gobble from the west. Soon, another tom struts into view; he’s following a hen as well. When the hens collided, they decided to head out into the field we were set up in, leaving the fence line. It looked like they were going to pass behind the blind, which would have been pandemonium as we tried to close up one side to open the other. Luckily the hens decided to check out the decoys, one of them picking on the DSD hen again.

We knew we were going to try for these two toms since we had been watching them for so long. The first tom to enter the decoys was the one that had come from the west. Tony wanted the one that came from the east, so he waited for an opportunity to draw, with 4 birds standing in the decoys. He got drawn back, but didn’t have a perfect shot and waited for the tom to turn. The Bullhead almost severed the head, the tom dropped and had barely hit the ground when the old 12 barked, knocking down the other tom where it stood. It was 2 pm, almost exactly 3 hours after the tom Tony decapitated was spotted.

There was a lot of hooping, hollering and high five'n going on in that blind right then! Tags filled! Time to take some photos and relax a bit. We cleaned the birds, did some sight seeing and then we hit the interstate home a day early.


Pics of the ending double:
From inside the blind, the decoys were set up in a diamond formation, Tony's bird is on the line between the left decoy and the farthest decoy, my bird is farther to the left :

From outside:

Check out the live hen walking past our set up as I'm standing there taking pics. She is just to the left of the blind in the background:

The Bullhead carnage:

The birds:

Merriams' aren't known for weight, spur or beard length.Tony's Tom had 1 1/8" spurs and weighed 18 pounds, which was pretty much the average for all four birds (ranged from 16.5 to 18.5 lbs). Beard length on the best bird was 10 inches. Our trophy value in these birds was the effort, patience and perseverance needed to be successful. Taking such a trip with a friend: priceless.

Awesome trip!

[RaisedByWolves]

Scored on a nice archery tom yesterday that almost wasn't to be! My friend Ben and I drove around a section of properties trying to locate some toms so we could figure out where to sit for our evening hunt. Towards the end of the drive we located a group of 1 tom, 3 jakes and some hens in a field that were about 1/3 mile from where we had permission to hunt. We parked at my friends house and drug my bow, blind, decoys and the whole works about .6 miles to a back field where we thought the flock might end up to roosting by.

On the way in we saw about 4 hens, 2 of which we ended up spooking. After getting the blind and everything set-up on a wooded point, we sat and waited. Every once in awhile we would hear some clucks and gobbles towards the direction we expected to see the birds. Our vision was only about 100 yards in that direction because the field crested in the middle. A hen eventually made her way in from the opposite direction as one of the neighbors started riding around on a dirt bike! The hen quickly left and we weren't hearing any more birds from the flock. 45 minutes go by so I stuck my head out of the roof to check and couldn't see a thing. This sucks! I texted a friend about how crappy the night was going....Just then, Ben spotted about 5 hens coming over the crest just yelping like crazy! Sure enough 4 big fans followed. Who are these birds!?? The group started heading down the wrong end of the feild I tried to watch the group of 4 toms, 2 jakes, and 10 hens to see where they were going to roost on the other side, about 400 yards away.

2 hens that were in the back of the group actually headed our way and came into the decoys to peck around...This is just great I thought, all the toms are long gone. Boy was I wrong I looked out the side window towards the opposite end and 3 longbeards had left the big group and were headed straight for us. The first one in line was the biggest so I planned to draw right before he came into view. I got it back without spooking the bird, settled the pin and crushed the longbeard at 13 yards!! He limped about 90 yards really fast with the other 2 toms in tow and they started strutting and pecking at him. Me and Ben busted out of the blind and ran across the field to claim him and up he goes into the air! My jaw dropped. He flew about 100 yards but I knew he was hurting bad. He layed in between 2 humps in the field and I managed to grease him with another arrow. Both shots were perfect, I have a new found respect for these birds!!....After the proper celebration was out of the way we headed back to the blind for pictures and to pack up. Just then we saw the 4th tom fly up to roost right behind our set-up! Pretty funny how it all ends up workin out sometimes Big thanks to Ben for calling and bringing his DSD's. Hope everyone is getting on some birds. Pat

Didn't have a scale but I figured he was about 20 lbs, with a 10 inch beard

[Wrinkleneck]

Lots of GREAT success stories above this post thats for sure!!!
I started my spring turkey season off with having the 2nd season of the the spring. Thought that was good season to have until the day before my season was to open, I ended up blowing my lower back out . Couldn't even walk for 3 days, so hunting thunder chickens was out of the ?. Not all was lost as I also ended up getting a tag for the 4th season over the counter. So here we are 4th season opened yesterday with me having to work Now day 2 and I'm finally able to get out hunting for a nice tom.
Here is my setup on the edge of a picked corn field.



I get to my blind around 5:15 am hoping to hear lots of goobles as the sun starts to rise. No luck with the goobles this morning as the birds were being quite as a church mouse. I called off and on anyway hoping to get a responce, but no luck. I said to myself that if I didn't get any action by 9 am I'm outta here. 9 came and I thought what the heck I will stay and call a couple more times. Still no one wants to talk to me so again I said to my self if no action by 9:30 I leaving. 9:30 rolls around with no action. Pretty bumbed out I said to myself I'm staying till 10 without calling and thats final. 10 hits and still not a sound heard from a turkey. So I start to get my things together inside the blind to get the heck out of there. All of a sudden I look up and here comes this tom over the hill looking like he was on a mission to mess my jake decoy up. He would not even slow down enough on his way to the jake decoy so I could get a shot. I waited till he stopped staring at my jake decoy then released an arrow right thru his wings at 10 yards Very happy I waited the silent devil out thats for sure.

10" beard with 1" spurs THUNDER CHICKEN



I'm guessing he weighed around 23# to 25#



Never did hear a gooble all morning, but still managed to be able to get bird.

[LiL Huntress]

Jodi’s First Spring Turkey Hunt
Monday May 7th, 2012
Early this morning I was with Tyler (Big Hunt) he shot his 27lbs turkey. He was so excited and I was so happy for him. I couldn’t believe that his fly down tactic with his hat actually worked, it made the turkey fly down. He made a few calls and he came right in. I couldn’t even see him yet, but as soon as Ty seen his head he put his gun up and BANG! There goes the turkey rolling down the valley we ran after him, tagged him and started to head back. Way to start of the morning.
We take care of his turkey then decide to take a little break, relax, and get some lunch. Afterwards, we were debating on sitting in the blind the rest of the day or going out to hunt for some morel mushrooms. We decided to look for some mushrooms. Now that Tyler is tagged out for the fourth season, I still have a tag to fill, so we headed out and I carried my gun along just in case we ran into a gobbler. We head across the field back towards the valley. We headed down the dug way and almost got in where some good elm trees are and before we can even find any mushrooms Tyler says to me Stop! Stop! Stop! I stop in my tracks; he spots a hen about 50 yards down the trail. So, we stopped where we were. There was nowhere to sit, and there was nowhere to hide for cover, we sat behind this small log that was in the middle of the dug way. I quickly put on my mask and gloves. Ty holds up his predator camouflage shirt to use as a blind, he gets out his calls, and lets out a few yelps and purrs. She comes right in for us 10 yards, yelping back and looking for us. Thanks to our makeshift blind she never even saw us.
earlyer that mouring when tyler shot his bird, there was another tom gobbling down the ridge. as we got up to the car thoses gobbles kept getting closer and closer to where i killed mine......the hen continued yelping and walking away to the right of us when all of a sudden to the left of us on the ridge we hear a gobble gobble gobble. I couldn’t believe it the hen was calling this big tom right in for me. She keeps yelping and he keeps gobbling back getting closer and closer. At this point I can’t see him yet, but I can hear him echoing through the valley getting closer and closer. He is in full strut now, as he’s approaching me I can hear him spitting, sharp psssssst, and drumming, deep dooooom, sounds. I know he’s close, as I scan the area, I finally see him strutting, my breathing gets heavy, and I get my gun up ready to shoot. Ty whispers to me, take your safety off and when you’re ready, shoot. He’s behind a tree I let him come out a couple of feet, I get a clear shot. BANG!!! We ran after him, I helped hold his wings down so he wouldn’t go anywhere. I couldn’t believe how strong he was. I was so full of excitement and shock, the adreniline was rushing through my veins, I was so happy, ecstatic, and overwhelmed. One shot, one kill!!! It was about a 25 yard shot. It all happened so fast in a matter of ten minutes or so, Ty never even got a chance to get his video camera on. I tagged him and carried out my three year old 25lbs gobbler with ease up the ridge and across the field to my car. tyler belives that it was the same turkey we heard in the mouring after he shot his 27 pounder......He had 10.5 inch beard and 1 inch spurs. We got back to camp, had a fire that night and my hunt was all that I could talk about . I was so proud of myself. My first spring turkey hunt couldn’t have gone any better. This will definitely be one to remember. Thanks Tyler.(BigHunt)









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