MadisonB&C
Active Member
Finally got my bird this morning, about 50 minutes after sunrise. 11 3/4 inch beard, 1 1/4 & 1 3/8 inch spurs. Stories and pics are comin' soom!
Yeehaw!!!
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simplesimon
New Member
Way to go Madison!!! Can not wait until the pics!!!
K
Kat
Guest
Good job, looking forward to the story and pics!
Limb Chicken
Active Member
Nice work there BC
MadisonB&C
Active Member
Sorry it took so long to post the story. Been a little busy lately. Ok, here's the story:
Last Saturday, the 7th, I woke up at 4:00 and got into the turkey woods a full hour before daylight. My intentions were to set up for and wait out an ol' boss tom. I walked across a small, secluded alfalfa field to the head of an old logging road. The road descends into a river bottom, dropping steadily for 75 yards before turning 90 degrees on a sort of shelf. In thirty more yards the road splits. To the right the road runs west, and drops the short distance to the river. The left branch continues in a south-westward direction and in 150 yards crosses a small creek and peters out at the foot of a steep sloped ridge.
I put my hen decoy in the broad area where the two roads meet and tip-toed to a cedar tree I had trimmed earlier in the season. I was five yards away from the edge of the road, 15 from my decoy and slightly up hill. By this time my watch read 4:45. Sunrise came one very long hour later, and there were gobblers everywhere, but I hadn't heard a thing from the bird I wanted. Finally, at 6:00, a deep, raspy cluck came from the area I thought he would come from. I clucked once in response. 20 minutes later, when nothing had showed, some of those other toms were sounding mighty tempting. Three in particular had caught my ear.
They were no more than 200 yards off, somewhere near where the left branch ends. Twice I got them to gobble with cuts and yelps from my mouth call, and when I toned it down they were still responding. They were closing the distance, I was sure of it, and they were coming staight down that road. Unortunately, there's a deadfall blocking that road about thirty yards from my cedar, and after 10 minutes of silence they were suddenly at that tree gobblering and spitting and drumming, all the while with me shaking thinking this will be just another close call. With my gun pointed at my dece, praying they'll slip under that tree, I turn my head slightly in their direction. Is that spitting going up the hill? Sure enough, within seconds one black shape comes darting in, then another, and another! Suddenly I have three birds five to ten yards in the woods behind me and to my left, gobbling and drumming, the whole show. Everytime I flinched at a gobble I wondered when they'd see me and spook. Fortunately, they never even had a clue. Two of the toms decided they'd seen enough and starting bobbing real impatient like towards my decoy, like they were racing each other but still trying to look cool for the lady. They walked by so close I could could hear their feathers ruffling. We're talking one, maybe two yards, and the whole while I'm wondering when they'll hear my heart pounding. When the biggest one stopped to strut at the edge of the road (5 yards), I swung smooth and let 'er rip. Thumped him good, deader than a doornail, and the end result was my biggest bird to date. 11 3/4 inch beard, 1 1/4 & 1 3/8 inch spurs. I'll post some pics as soon as we find the connector for the digital camera.
The blue dot is my cedar, the red is Henrietta (my dece), the white is the deadfall and the yellow is the path the birds took.
Last Saturday, the 7th, I woke up at 4:00 and got into the turkey woods a full hour before daylight. My intentions were to set up for and wait out an ol' boss tom. I walked across a small, secluded alfalfa field to the head of an old logging road. The road descends into a river bottom, dropping steadily for 75 yards before turning 90 degrees on a sort of shelf. In thirty more yards the road splits. To the right the road runs west, and drops the short distance to the river. The left branch continues in a south-westward direction and in 150 yards crosses a small creek and peters out at the foot of a steep sloped ridge.
I put my hen decoy in the broad area where the two roads meet and tip-toed to a cedar tree I had trimmed earlier in the season. I was five yards away from the edge of the road, 15 from my decoy and slightly up hill. By this time my watch read 4:45. Sunrise came one very long hour later, and there were gobblers everywhere, but I hadn't heard a thing from the bird I wanted. Finally, at 6:00, a deep, raspy cluck came from the area I thought he would come from. I clucked once in response. 20 minutes later, when nothing had showed, some of those other toms were sounding mighty tempting. Three in particular had caught my ear.
They were no more than 200 yards off, somewhere near where the left branch ends. Twice I got them to gobble with cuts and yelps from my mouth call, and when I toned it down they were still responding. They were closing the distance, I was sure of it, and they were coming staight down that road. Unortunately, there's a deadfall blocking that road about thirty yards from my cedar, and after 10 minutes of silence they were suddenly at that tree gobblering and spitting and drumming, all the while with me shaking thinking this will be just another close call. With my gun pointed at my dece, praying they'll slip under that tree, I turn my head slightly in their direction. Is that spitting going up the hill? Sure enough, within seconds one black shape comes darting in, then another, and another! Suddenly I have three birds five to ten yards in the woods behind me and to my left, gobbling and drumming, the whole show. Everytime I flinched at a gobble I wondered when they'd see me and spook. Fortunately, they never even had a clue. Two of the toms decided they'd seen enough and starting bobbing real impatient like towards my decoy, like they were racing each other but still trying to look cool for the lady. They walked by so close I could could hear their feathers ruffling. We're talking one, maybe two yards, and the whole while I'm wondering when they'll hear my heart pounding. When the biggest one stopped to strut at the edge of the road (5 yards), I swung smooth and let 'er rip. Thumped him good, deader than a doornail, and the end result was my biggest bird to date. 11 3/4 inch beard, 1 1/4 & 1 3/8 inch spurs. I'll post some pics as soon as we find the connector for the digital camera.
The blue dot is my cedar, the red is Henrietta (my dece), the white is the deadfall and the yellow is the path the birds took.