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Season’s First Tom shot today @10 am
This season has been a very strange one for me. As some of you know, I usually take out quite a few new hunters and friends out turkey hunting. With Covid 19 this year everything was different.
On the plus side I was out hunting more this year than usual. I like hunting early in the morning and spent many morning in the blind or leaning against a tree hearing and watching the wildlife wake up. I have had more deer come close to me this year than ever before, it was almost unusual to not have a deer close to me. Early in the season I had three really good opportunities to shoot Toms at two different properties. Unfortunately I missed, twice with the shot gun and once with the crossbow.
the last week I have been concentrating on a group of 3 Toms that roost on my neighbour’s property. They always gobble like crazy first thing and even later. I hunted them from a blind on a fence line between 2 fields they like to use for food and strutting. I tried decoys, no decoys, strutting Jake and a hen, etc. I hunted the blind and the next field northeast of their roost. Two days ago I was hunting this field using a half strutting Jake and breeding hen decoy. Almost no calling and after 2 hours a Tom gobbles to the left of me about 20 yards away. I can’s see him because of the undergrowth. He sees the decoys, does 3 loud putts and is gone. This all leads up to today’s hunt.
Today I am wearing my ghillie suit and at 4:20 am I slowly make my way into the woods using a trail from logging the property. This is the same trail the Tom used two days ago. I make my way back to within 60 yards of the roost. There are lots of tops in the area providing good cover. I get settled in and around 5:30 the Toms start gobbling. I listen to them gobble for about 20 minutes. During this time a doe walks towards me And gets within 20 yards when she lifts her head and starts sniffing. I am using a thermacell and I am upwind of her. She just stand there and sniffs and eventually turns around and slowly walks away. She stops every once in a while to sniff. I hear the Toms come off the roost and make a couple of soft, short calls. The gobble back at me and continue to gobble for a while but don’t come towards me. I waited 90 minutes then moved back to the field edge and have a coffee. I then make my way over to the field where I have my blind. I see 2 Toms and they start gobbling. Then I see 2 hens with them. I try a couple of soft calls and all of a sudden there’s an angry hen 10 feet in front of me. She putts a few times and continues to walk back and forth in front of me. After a while she leaves and the Toms and hens walk right past my blind. I wait half an hour and there are gone. The wind picks up and it starts raining, so I decide to go to the blind and hunt from there. After sitting in the blind I decide to get up and get rid of some coffee. I open the blind and look out and see 2 Toms and 3 hens close to the fence line about 200 yards to my left. I get back in the blind and make a few soft calls. 2 of the hens start walking towards me , with the others following. They get within 100 yards of me and then turn around and head back to where they were. From watching turkeys here many times, I know they will go to the corner of the field and then cross into the hay field on the other side if the fence. I decide it’s time to do a sneak. There is a fair bit of cover close to the blind so I cross over into the hay field and slowly sneak 100 yards. I check and see the birds feeding and the Toms strutting. Here the cover is lower so I have to crawl the last 100 yards to where the birds are. Here the brush is really thick and I can see one hen out about 15 yards. The others are obstructed by the brush but are closer to the fence line. I can hear the one hen starting to putt so I slowly go to a place where the brush is lower and stand up. One Tim and a hen fly off, 2 hens run and the last Tom stops to look at me at 25 yards. I shoot and he is down. I get up to him and he has a nice looking fan and a good sized beard.
When I got home I weighed him and he was only 16 pounds. That is the smallest turkey I have shot in the last 13 years. He had a nice thick beard that was 10.5 inches and 1 inch and just under 1 inch spurs.
small or not, I’m pretty happy to have managed to shoot one of the Toms from this group. Back at it one more time tomorrow morning to see if I can fill my last tag. If not, it has been a really great season.
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