Circa 1999
My 2nd turkey season
Having one under the belt I thought I knew what I was doing. Turns out I still was getting my tail handed to me. Especially the mountain birds.
One day at work I was talking to a coworker, and she got me connected with one of her friends that owned a farm her way.
I ended up getting permission to hunt and couldn't wait to hunt the farm. I had a day to hunt but I still haven't scouted the property, but I knew there were birds in the area, so I just went in blind.
At this point in my turkey hunting career, I finally was getting the drift that patience was the key to killing birds. I would start staying longer at spots rather than giving up on them to fast. At this point I of the season I was getting close but still was getting burned by the faithful hen pulling my strutter away.
Back to the hunt, I ended up getting to the property about an hour before sunrise and decided to listen before making a blind move. It's about 630 and I hear a Tom blowing it up in a little patch of woods next to some train tracks. I set up and wait it out until the Tom hits the ground. Did some light calling for a half an hour with no luck. The Tom would gobble on his own but he didn't budge..... So I knew he was henned up and since I had nowhere to go I was planning to wait him out.
3 hours pass and I'm still calling every 15 minutes when I catch movement to my right. Turned out to be a hen and about 8 more fallowing her with a strutter straggling behind. I remember thinking to myself here we go again.... Got a little aggressive with the calling hoping that one of the hens would get curious to check out the stranger. It worked, kind of. The hens started slowly feeding my way on a angle that would have them walk by me at 30 to 50 yards. It's about 11 now and the hens are headed my way feeding with the Tom behind them. My heart is racing now thinking that this was going to work out. At his point the hens are in shooting range but the Tom was still at about 60 yards. I call one more time and the lead hen looks my way then starts slowly walking away from me pulling the other hens with her. Fortunately there were two stragglers that were a little curious and were following the flock but were still in shooting range. The Tom heads towards the two hens and is at about 40 yards and was parallel to me but fallowing the flock of hens. Made a couple cuts with my slate call and it pulled the Tom towards me at about 35 yards. Told myself I better shoot, cut one more time with no reaction from the Tom strutting headed towards the flock, I then decided to shoot settling the bead on his head and pulling the trigger. I ended up shooting him while strutting and dropped him in his tracks.
Talk about being a happy camper. Walk up to the Tom and he was a good one. 1.25" Spurs with a paint brush of a beard. That hunt was my first and last hunt because I supposedly killed the giant that everybody was after and the workers that hunted the spot didn't like that. Oh well, I moved on
