Tangled with a tom

[ninepointer]

Everything was perfect. I was set up 150 yards from the roost on their usual fly down route, and there were 3 birds gobbling from the tree tops, silhouetted by the rising sun .

Then the coyote starting howling behind me. One at a time I watched the turkeys fly down, all in exactly the opposite direction .

The turkey hunter's dilemma; should I wait it to see what happens, or relocate? My gut said move. So guessing where the birds might be headed, I looked around me and decided that if I followed the little creek valley, I just might be able to stay out of sight and get ahead of the birds. So I gathered up my decoys and gear, fast-walked a large loop to the other side of the property, and slipped into a blind I'd build before the season inside a woodlot. I decided to leave the decoys in the bag as I called.

Fifteen minutes later I was rewarded with a nearby gobble, confirmed that I'd managed to get ahead of the birds. I did some clucks and purrs and within minutes saw two red bobbing heads coming my way through the trees. They were jakes, and I let them walk on as they came within 10 yards of me. I was pretty sure that the gobble I'd heard was made by a bigger bird.

Thirty minutes later I was starting to have doubts, but then the bird gobbled again, this time closer. When I spotted him he was on a course that would keep him way out of range. Not sure if it was my calling that turned him slightly my way, because he certainly wasn't gobbling to my calls. Ever so slowly I reached for my range-finder and its magnification confirmed it was a tom. He was walking very slowly and I lost him behind the trees for a few minutes. When he finally re-appeared, he was hard to my left, almost beyond the limit to which I could rotate my body. It was now or never.

BOOM! The tom flopped over, didn't even flap. I walked over to him, picked him up by the legs, took one step back toward my blind, and that's when the hell broke loose! He wasn't dead yet, and in fact he seemed very much alive! I soon dropped him for fear of a spur getting me. But in our brief wrestling match, the tom somehow lost his tail feathers. A second kill shot was followed by the realization that here would be no fan on my wall from this tom.

The view


The blind


The fan

[Birdbuff]

Glad you got the bird and no worse for wear. Those spurs can get very sharp.

[tom gobble]

Nice bird congrats. Love the pic hanging from the blind you made

[Cameracutter]

Well done. Great story. Nice photos

[MihajloSimsic]

Nice story and Tom. Even if you did give him a hair cut Lol. A heads up for next time. A fast way to safely dispatch a thrashing Tom is to take him by the neck and spin him once like a towel.
The Tom I got last week tried to bite me after I sent an arrow through his heart, I put my boot on his neck, picked him up and gave him a ring around the rosey.

[Turkeyjohn]

Now that’s a cool story, bummer on the fan, but still that is awesome...my wife says a fella can have too many fans anyway....

Congrats,

TurkeyJohn


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Deer Hunter]

haha, congrats, you got her done. Beautiful view and pics.

[rf2]

Congratulations.
I have found that that happens very often with Winchester Longbeard XRs for some reason.
What shells were you using?

[fratri]

Sounds like a very exciting hunt, glad it all worked out in the end.
Congrats on the hunt/bird.

[ninepointer]

Congratulations.
I have found that that happens very often with Winchester Longbeard XRs for some reason.
What shells were you using?

It was supposed to be a #6 Winchester Longbeard in the chamber, but somehow a random #4 Kent shell from my vest end up there instead.