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2012 has been busy, and it wasn't looking like I was going to get my turkey hunt in this year. Last night, a friend called and heckled me into going this morning, so I got a tag, set the alarm for 4:45am and rounded up my stuff.
I hadn't done any scouting this year to know where anything was roosted, but have a spot that's been pretty loyal for hosting birds over the years. So we loaded into my scout and headed to the into the night, through a couple of mudholes and into field. We gathered the gear, made the 3/4 mile walk to the setup spot, put a single decoy 20 yards into the field from the hedge row we now sat.
At first real light, after 15 minutes of birds singing, he begins the morning calls....and immediately 2 gobblers within 100 yards of each side respond. Very encouraging. After 15-20 minutes of exchanges, I see one come down from his tree into the field 100 yards away, followed by 3 hens. His display begins immediately, fanning, puffing, gobbles, stutting and shaking his butt in the general direction of my decoy. He's hung up with the other hens and looking like they might go another direction, so we call a little more aggressively. The morning explodes with the sound of 5 gobblers on all sides of us. The boss hen has had enough and charges our decoy, followed by another hen, and my target tom. The hen rushes, and hits the decoy with a furious rake of her feet, bringing the Tom to 20 yards where he hesitates, puffs his display of feathers, and feels the bead of the site of my 10 gauge centered on his throat. The fire bow erupts, the tom flips over and never moves again. 23.6lbs, 1 1/4" spurs.
We make the customary handshake, discuss the events, take some photos and made the walk back to the truck, and were back home by 8am. Mornings like this one are why people hunt turkeys.
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