Great End to Season

I've been hunting off and on with an Armed Forces buddy for the last 3 springs. This year was buggered up with the Covid and he's posting out so we never really did connect until this past weekend. He's leaving in 3 weeks so we really wanted to get together for some turkey hunting on a piece of property that after 3 years, I think he knows almost as well as myself. To put it into context, either by fate or failure, we've seen birds, gotten close to birds, heard birds and bumped birds, but we, together have never shot at birds.

Myself being tagged out early on, and getting TurkeyWesley his last bird last weekend, I wasn't quite ready to say goodbye to the spring woods so I called my buddy to see if we could get out last Saturday....The offer was accepted, and the game was afoot....

We met up at our local carpool parking lot and drove our separate vehicles for the 40 minutes to get to our spot.... We gear up and get into the woods well before dawn and the waiting started... Not long though before we hear gobbles erupting from woods across the field from us maybe 300 yards away...We're in the game we figure for a change, not bad for not putting any birds to roost the night before....

We give them a few clucks just to let them know where we were and to invite the birds to the party when they hit the ground...Well, they gobble like crazy, even with us not calling much and dark turns to dawn and we're waiting... Not long though as we watch a hen come out of the woods to west of their position about 200 yards from where we think they are.... the best decoy ever and you can't knock her calling....best part was she was coming directly to us.... We're in....or not....The birds gobble and the hen does a 90 degree turn and heads their way.... The birds continue to talk back and forth and my Buddy and i can only watch this hussy pull our birds away... They hit the ground and keep going on that 90 degree tangent away from us.... no amount of sweet talking would sway them and we're skunked again.... At least my buddy tells me that it was the most action he's seen all season so I do feel better about him getting out to at least see and hear something....

Fast forward to this morning....We meet up same spot and we decide we're going to set up where the birds came out from and get them before any hen does...The dark gives way again, but this time we hear absolutely nothing in the neighbourhood, zip, nada, not a thing.... Well crap...

So while we start hatching a new plan, what do I hear but a far distant gobble, I think I know where it's coming from, so I ask my buddy if he was in for a new plan.... And we're off.... There's a field that the birds tend to travel through on a bit of a ridge, we were lower and had to climb up a small grassy hill to peek over the other side.... Fortunately, I had packed my full strut decoy, so I have him carry it in front of him to try to hide our approach... As we get closer to the edge to where we can see....Gobbling....there's more than one...We get to where we can see over the edge and sure enough a few hundred yards away there's two Toms slowly working their way our way....

I suggest to my Buddy to get into the treeline and work our way closer to them..There's quite a bit of tall grass and bushes to hide us a bit and he's still carrying my decoy....It's property only we have permission and no one has been back there this season, so we felt safe with it....So we get to a transition spot where the grass goes from grass to field and we set up along the edge, the decoy he set to the side and we start some easy hen calling.... Gobbling....

We're in business, the one bird comes our way and stops just at the top of a small rise in the field, just stands, every now and then, he'd gobble, but then he starts putting and turning the other way to leave, we don't see where his friend is at this point....So it seems they're moving away from us as they must have seen something or perhaps just annoyed the hen didn't come out to them... At this point, Buddy asks if he should hide behind the decoy and try to crawl out to them.... I say sure, I figure it's 50/50, it'll either spook them off, they were leaving anyway, or it may prompt them to come in....

There's been two times this season where I wish I was more organized to be able to film a hunt, the first was TurkeyWesley's bird from Sunday a week and a bit ago, and this morning....

Buddy had the decoy in front of him and had only moved about 10 feet, when the bird we thought we had spooked turned and starting coming hard our way, the second bird we had lost track of, actually came up from behind him and the two of them started to trot into the direction of my buddy and the decoy....

You know you see guys hunting this way on TV and the internet, the reaping game they call it, I wouldn't necessarily compare this to those guys crossing yards across fields to chase a bird, buddy really only moved about 20 feet closer than where he started, but the birds came to him at a trot..... Geez I wish I had got it on video....So the birds are right there, I'm wondering when is he going to shoot, finally he does and sure enough, he and I finally connect on a bird...He shot him at 15 feet and he says he could have taken the second as well, I did wish I had another tag, but there's next year....

Awesome hunt, we finally connect on a nice, not a monster Tom, after 3 years of being handed our lunch, on likely the last chance we'll have to hunt together for a long while....Bird ended up at 18 lbs, 3/4 inch spurs, 7 3/4 inch beard, not a monster, but a legitimate Tom, not a Jake...and Buddy is over the moon, first bird he's ever harvested with spurs.....

Makes getting up at 330 a whole lot easier,

Good luck to anyone still out there chasing their own Toms...

TurkeyJohn

That was a great story
Congrats.....

Great read while sitting by the pool this afternoon! Congrats to you both!

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Good goin' guys:) nothing beats hunting with close friends or family....the bird is a big bonus.

Wild hunt, great story!

Congrats, great story

Way to go John. Sometimes ya just got to go to them lol would of been great to see.

Great story, congrats to you both.

Congrats to both of you and good story

Nice recap of your hunt. congrates on a great season.