Terrific_tom
New Member
My season for Turkey hunting started this morning. Didn't know what to expect as they had Winter Storm warnings out yesterday into today. Got up at 3:30 this morning to find a few inches of snow on the ground. Wind was light so my son and I headed out to our land. Got to land about 4:30. Started the walk into the blind and noticed a humongous set of bear tracks in the snow. As we were looking at the tracks a couple of mallards busted out of a wet area, scared the hell out of us. We continued our walk into the blind and just before we got to the blind a couple of Sand Hill Cranes spooked and flew off. There were lot of deer tracks in the food plot that we had the blind set up on. I set up a single hen decoy about 15 yards from blind. Once inside the blind we got every thing ready including a video camera before opening the blind windows. It was now about 5:00 am, still dark but with the fresh snow we could make out 3 deer on the other side of food plot. We watched the deer for a while and at 5:20 I whispered to my son that usually by this time we hear a gobble. No more than me saying that and a bird let's out a gobble and it is fairly close. Well that started up at least 4 more birds to gobble and they are close. It was getting lighter and I looked up in trees directly across food plot about 70 yards from us and 8 hens are roosted. Thought to myself this is going to be a good morning. Shortly after the Toms were on the ground in the woods about a 100 yards from us gobbling up a storm but still out of sight. At about 6:00 am a Longbeard pops out into food plot at 92 yards. Then another longbeard pops out followed by a 3rd longbeard. The 2nd bird chased the 3rd bird back into the woods. My son left out a couple of yelps on the box call and all 3 of the birds called. Then the 2nd, 3rd and a 4th longbeard come out to join the 1st bird. They all started gobbling and displaying. Just then a hen came out from a different spot followed by another longbeard. I could not believe it 5 longbeards out in the food plot about 80 yards out. My son gave a few more yelps with the box call and the birds all started to head straight for the decoy. When they got to 25 yards I picked out the biggest bird and nailed him with a load of Number 6's. Looked at my watch it was 6:05. I wish that my son had been picked for a tag because we could have had a double this morning. Got the whole hunt on film. The pictures turned out great with the fresh snow. Hope you enjoy.
Tom
Tom
