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The student will always out do the teacher LOL great memories
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Long story short last weekend i passed on two gimme shots on jakes and the third bird that came in was a tom. The birds cam in dead silent just after 10:30. The TOm chose a different route and came right at me. based on the terrain, i couldn't tell if he was a tom until about 12 yards infront of me. I shot without much thought as how hard is a 12 yard shot. Well turns out hard enough, cause i saw wings flap and run away, so i stood up and shot again, this time at 30 yds or so and watching him fly away. i was speechless as to what happened until i went back to my spot. Turns out i throttled a limb right infront of the bird and he got away.
fast forward to yesterday, i am walking into my spot just after 5 when coyotes light up and force an early shock gobble from a turkey. he was roosted in a very different spot than anticipated but i decided to keep walking and set up between him and a field where i knew he roosted the day before and likely frequented. The set up was ~600yds from the roost location. The bird continued to gobble from the roost when it was lighter out and once i heard the gobble change and knew he was on the ground i let out a bunch of calls which were answered immediately. called again, answered again. then i went silent. This Tom was a little over zealous i'd say and he covered 600yds in just over 10 minutes, gobbling the entire way. he was headed straight down my barrel at 70yds where he stopped and gobbled but oddly he decided to take a hard left (my right). i did some fancy acrobatics to make the shot work. Ended up shooting him at 6:05, a nice tidy morning.
i can see why he was all alone, solid beard but the spurs were left to be desired. must have had his butt whipped by the other toms in the area which likely had the hens and were much less interested in my calls.
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photos are a bit misleading, measurements are per below:
beard: 9"
spur: 0.5"
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Got one down on Saturday. Hunted the same field 5 mornings over the course of the past week and finally was able to sneak in close enough to his roost. No blind and no decoys just the way I like it.
Beard = 9.5”
Longest Spur = 15/16”
Shotgun
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Great Bird Park and good story to go along with it..nice to have one play nice....
TJ
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Great hunt, glad a plan works out eventually CD94, nice bird,
TJ
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Great birds guys congrats.
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Bird #2 down yesterday. Tagging out before the bugs come out is the perfect way to end the season for me haha. I spotted this tom on my property from the road with about a dozen other jakes and hens with him. It was relatively wide open pasture but luckily I had the tail fan from the first bird I got with me. I was able to belly crawl about 100 yards directly to them and ended up shooting him at 10 yards. I had heard of this "technique" before but couldn't believe it worked like it did, especially after I had 2 jakes come right up to me just after I started heading towards the group. The jakes putted some but never truly spooked and eventually just worked back to the rest of the group. It was a pretty wild experience and to top it off my brother tagged a jake the same morning to make our second double in the last 2 years.
Beard = 9.25"
Longest Spur = 15/16"
Shotgun (slung on my shoulder in the one picture)
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Got lazy this morning after getting up to hunt both Friday and Saturday morning, and decided not to hunt. "Slept in" till 5:30 - wow that is wonderful. Let the dog out, stepped out onto my back deck and what do I hear, far off in the distance? So much for not hunting, grabbed my crossbow and was out the door without even a coffee. Absolutely gorgeous morning in the woods, grouse drumming, warblers singing, and hens yelping and a tom gobbling. Moved in on him as he answered, then hens would work towards him, he'd go quiet for awhile, then announce he was available again, and I would let him know where I was. I relocated 3 times, and he was slowly working towards me, with some hens in tow.
I was sitting with my back against a large maple, in a swampy area, wishing I had put the Termacell in my vest, and I can see him slowly moving through the scrub about 60 yards away. He was hung up, gobbling and strutting back and forth. I could hear hens coming in from behind me, so moving at all was out of the question. Then the hens got closer and louder, and as they came into view, I realized they were three deer. So now I have a hung up gobbler, at least 2 or 3 hens yelping like crazy, and three deer within a 60 yard circle - lots of eyes to bust me. What to do - wait for the deer to leave, and the hens to go to him? I went quiet and eventually he came my way, a bit at a time, finally stopping at 27 yards, and fanning back and forth. As he turned away from me, I raised my bow and attempted the Texas heart shot. On impact, a few feathers trimmed, and he deflated out of strut, and just started walking away - what just happened? I quickly reloaded, and made another rushed shot as he slinked away, down low. Thought I hit him, but no wing flapping, no kicking or scratching, aghhh!
To add to my misery, the mosquitos seemed to sense my weakness, and picked up their attack several notches. I still had 2 hens watching me and trying to figure out what was happening. Did I misjudge the distance, or maybe hit a twig? Entirely possible looking at both shooting lanes again. I decide to give him some time to bed down, and hopefully bleed out, so I sit, swatting bugs for 20 mins, then up and begin the search. Found a few feathers, neither arrow, and no tom. No blood. No good. Did another series of increasingly wider circles, nothing. At this point, I am frustrated, angry, and full of bowhunters remorse. Should I have waited? Would he have come closer? Caffeine withdrawl is starting to pound in my skull, so I reluctantly head out, go to the house and grab a coffee, and my Brittany. Now the last thing any upland hunter wants his bird dog to do is hunt and point turkeys! But I have to recover this bird, and so I put her beeper collar on, and she is bouncing, as we don't run her in the woods during nesting season, so she has been watching me go without her for a few weeks now. I put her on the scent, and within 30 seconds she finds my first arrow, and it is anything but clean - things are looking up. She takes off again, and soon I hear the intermittent beep of her on point. Sure enough, she was pointing the tom, who tried to run away as I approached. She launched after this tom, pinned him to the ground, and I quickly got my boot on his neck. What a relief to find this tom, not a monster, but a roller coaster of a hunt and recovery. Now I just hope my bird dog doesn't now think she is a turkey dog!
1-1/8" spurs, 9.25" beard
[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/gFhK6fi.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/WHlFOL9.jpg[/IMG]
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[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/fOxhHLi.jpg[/IMG]
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Starting to get a few more birds in, way to go everyone.
Here is the updated leaderboard:
Top 10:
1 genec 49
2 tom gobble 46
lenny 46
3 TurkeyWes 45
4 outdoorliife 44.75
5 Eddy22 43.25
6 Onelessarrow 39.5
7 CD94 37.75
8 CD94 37.25
9 parkcity 28
10 TurkeyWes 19.5
Two Bird Totals:
1 CD94 75
2 TurkeyWes 64.5
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That's a great story. I'm glad you took the initiative to find that bird. Kudos!!
