Thanks!! This is my first Tom. I've been hunting them fairly seriously for 3 seasons now and finally connected. I'm super proud of this bird as my first.
Here's the story of the hunt...
I headed out for an afternoon hunt around 3pm at a farm I have permission to turkey hunt at. I had hunted this farm hard last season and had the birds patterned pretty good, but for one reason or another wasn't able to seal the deal. This year I spent the majority of my season hunting this farm again as I knew I would see birds.
For my first few hunts I had seen birds, but couldn't get anything in range: They weren't responding to my calling or coming into my decoys. After a frustrating few hunts of seeing birds but not having any luck I took a break from this farm to hunt a different farm with a buddy out in Avoca. We didn't have any luck there either but after our hunt we stopped at a small diner in Avoce (K's diner) and had a late breakfast and chatted with the owner. We told him our turkey woes and he offered some advice as he mentioned he had been hunting them for 20+ years. I tucked away the advice he gave us for a future hunt, which coincidentally would be the very next day...
So around quarter to 4pm I am finally setup in my blind. I've got my feeder hen, breeder hen, and 1/4 strut jake decoy setup about 15 yards from my blind in the inside corner of a corn field that just recently came down. The spread looked great, the weather was perfect, and I was really enjoying some nature watching as I had all manner of critters out an about enjoying the weather and the cut corn: flocks of blue jays doing aerial acrobatics and swooping in on the cut corn, a handful of plump squirrels bouncing from limb to limb and working their way into the field for snacks, a couple of coons, and a groundhog too.
I decided I wasn't going to do any calling until I saw a bird this hunt, and I think that helped me out here. Around 5:30 I heard the very distinct sound of a gobble behind my blind in the woodlot adjacent to the field, probably a good couple hundred of yards off. So I picked up my slate call and scratched out a short yelp sequence with a few clucks on the call and let it rest. Another 30 minutes passes and I hadn't seen or heard anything so I decided to try a tactic the old-timer at the diner passed on to me from the day before: kee kee calling to the hens when the toms are henned up.
I popped in my mouth call and did a short series of kee kee's and kee kee runs. Maybe 10 more minutes passed by before I start to hear a chatty hen clucking to my right side. She came right out into the field checking out the dekes clucking the whole time. I decided this would a great time to try my turkey talk out and proceeded to have a fun little conversation with this suzy for a few minutes. I would cluck and yelp and she would cluck and yelp right back. It was definitely one of the coolest things i've done in the woods and gave me a great confidence boost knowing that I finally had gotten a handle on 'turkey talk'.
After a few minutes the hen goes quiet and proceeds to feed near the dekes acting very relaxed. Another hen sneaks out to feed with her and they mill about for a few minutes feeding, heedless of my dekes. A minute later I catch some movement out of the left window of my blind and here comes my Tom about 20-25 yards away out of the wood lot. He was slightly ruffled, almost 1/4 strut and headed straight towards the hens feeding in front of me. All of his attention was either on the hens and dekes and he never payed any attention to me as I slowly raised my 870 and lined up the bead on his head.
Finally when he was about 25 yards out the moment of truth came. He was broadside and offered me a perfect shot of his head and neck. I squeeze the trigger and... nothing! Damn I forgot to click off my safety! I carefully clicked off the safety without lowering my gun and in doing so must have gotten his attention as he folded his feathers and fully extended his head and neck, offering me an even better shot than before. I pullled the trigger, the 870 barked it's 12ga truth, and the Tom immediately fell over flapping.
He was standing right next to a puddle and toppled over right into it, where he proceeded to flap around for a few more minutes. After a couple of minutes of flapping he was done. Then I got out of my blind to collect my trophy.
This is my first Tom and i'm definitely super proud of him. Couldn't be happier for my first bird!
He weighed 24lbs, 9.25" beard, and 3/4" spurs.
He's currently sitting halved in my freezer. Going to cook up some tenderloins for dinner and smoke one of his halves this weekend.
