* Your most memorable turkey hunt*

[Efrank09]

It was the 2007 season and me and my dad had hunted hard all season long. Well my dad ended up having back surgery and could not go the last few weeks of the season. So i was on my on for the rest of the time. I hunted almost every day. I would come home from school grab my stuff and head to the woods. I had an encounter with a big gobbler one sunday morning but i could not close the deal. I went back to where i had seen him at it was about two weeks before the season ended and I knew i would just have to sit and wait that afternoon to hopefully see him. Well i got settled in and put out a decoy. I gave some yelps and clucks and it wasnt long before I had a bunch of hens coming to me. They walked off and I didnt see anything for another hour or so. I then saw two birds working their way up the fence line. One was a hen and the other was that big boy I had been looking for. The hen went under the fence across from me and he tried the same but he couldnt get under the wire and their were some cows in the pasture and they were walking towards him. Well he bolted away from them up my way and I clucked and yelped and he came in B-line right for the decoy I clicked the hammer back clucked one time and rolled him! This was my most memorable hunt because prevously I was going on a 5 season rut and I did it all by myself.

 

[sterlingworth]

I guess the first one I killed would be the most memorable. However it was so long ago that I forgot how I did it!

 

[silvestris]

It had been a long hot Saturday afternoon. I had probably covered about five miles up and down the rolling hills of southwest Mississippi looking for sufficient turkey sign to warrant a blind calling setup in hope of enticing a gobbler, all to no avail. I arrived at the truck dog tired just before dark, but having no prospect for Easter morning, I forced myself to inspect the finger ridge road on which my truck was parked.

I walked about two hundred yards when I spied a downed pine tree across the road. The log would make a comfortable seat upon which to await darkness and listen for a bird to gobble on the roost.

Before I could take a seat, he gobbled from the roost to the southeast at about one hundred and fifty yards. He was hot and apparently lonesome. He gobbled about three or four times on his own when I decided to tease him with a flying cackle on my Morgan Caller. He double gobbled and continued to gobble on his own, at distant owls, and at my occasional barred owl imitation. He gobbled over a hundred times until I covered the distance back to the truck.

The road back to the highway took me by the edge of a pasture. I had used my compass and topographic map at his first gobble and thereby knew that the gobbler was roosting six hundred yards due east of where the woods road met the pasture. A huge full moon was rising and I had been able to drive to the edge of the pasture without headlights. I couldn’t stand it. I stopped the truck, got out, and after a minute or two gave two note barred owl call and was immediately answered from the hollow to the east. I think he would have answered me all night had I so chosen.

Maneuvers became the order of the night as I drove the fifty miles to my home. I planed the approach along the north side of the pasture so as to avoid being seen in the full moonlight of the morning. Walking through the open pasture in that type of illumination would surely result in my detection and a fruitless morning. The vegetation in the pasture was short so the expected heavy dew would not prevent the turkey from flying or walking into the field.

Call selection was complete long before I reached my bed. Very light tree yelps on my thin piece of slate would be my initial enticement. Answers would be followed after a ten minute period of silence by the fuff-fuff sound of a wing taken from a previous gobbler along with a hardly audible fly down cackle from my Morgan Caller. Further silence would be followed with light clucks and purrs on my Huffman’s Vibrating Tongue. Answers to the tongue would be followed by nothing.

Anticipation resulted in a fitful sleep and a quick awakening at the first tone of one of my three alarm clocks. There was business at hand and I must not be late. I ate a hurried breakfast and began the drive to the Easter Gobbler. I marveled at the brightness of the full moon and eastern stars and the coolness of the morning.

I thought I had given myself plenty of time but the full moon was still sufficiently high in the western sky to brightly illuminate my footsteps as I walked along the edge of the pasture. Snakes, always a consideration, but seldom a concern, were neither as I could see my foot placement as if in broad daylight. At 5:54 and forty yards from my preferred hiding place, he gobbled much too early. I stopped and began to carefully and slowly place my feet one at a time as I approached my hide. My hide was simple, a small group of trees, none of which was wide enough to break my outline, but several small shrubs about three feet tall provided sufficient early morning cover between me and the anticipated approach of the Easter sultan. I immediately sat down and confidently arranged my calls. This hunt was preordained.

I determined to let him gobble, and gobble he did. On one hand I feared interruption by a hen or another hunter. I could do nothing about a hen and I determined that most hunters would not be hunting on Easter; further, it was too early for him to fly down so I couldn’t force him. Then I remembered that I had a game plan, a good one, and I must not let impatience spoil the setup. If it failed, it just failed.

Confusion set in for a moment. Each time the turkey gobbled, and he gobbled often, I would hear another gobbler answer about three or four seconds later, far to the south. After about ten gobbles and answers it dawned on me that I was hearing the Easter Gobbler’s echo. What a beautiful sound it was, like the alluring sound of the siren, and I glorified in the beautiful morning. It was time for action.

I picked up my slate and striker. I lightly roughened the slate and gave a short series of hushed tree yelps. He answered immediately. The slate had done its job and was set aside for the morning. I waited and he continued to gobble and occasionally double gobble, the phantom to the south imitating his every call to perfection. Silence was the game plan for now. He must be made to worry, and worry he did as his gobbling reached a fever pitch. The fever in the phantom to the south echoed his every call.

The time to firmly direct his attention to my position had arrived and I gathered my wing and Morgan Caller and as I fuff-fuff-fuff-fuff-fuffed I also emitted an almost inaudible fly down cackle with the Morgan Caller. He went wild, gobbling continuously for several seconds. I could only hear the last gobble of the many calls of the southern phantom as he mocked the sultan. Five minutes of silence was now the game plan. He and his phantom continued their frenzy, then as quickly slowed the tempo of his noise making in what seemed to be an act of confidence. He had been successful again at what he does so well. He ceased his gobbling but I had yet to hear his wingbeats as he flew down. Was he still in the tree? I must be motionless as the advantage had now shifted from me to him. It was time for the coup de grâce. I must regain the advantage.

I ever so slowly reached for the Vibrating Tongue, the wing and Morgan Caller having been retired for the morning. I clucked and purred softly and he gobbled, less clearly now. The southern phantom did not answer. He was on the ground. But where? There was only a lone huge oak tree between his gobble and myself. From which side would he approach? I felt his drum on my breast and thought I heard it too.

The calling was finished; he would either die or not. I ever so slowly picked up my shotgun and prepared for the event. I caught movement from the right of the oak as he stepped into the pasture to claim his prize. He was beautiful as he sashayed from his right to his left in full strut so as to present to his lady what he believed to be his most enticing profile, and he was enticing but yet too far. He drifted to his left further out into the pasture and began to pirouette. He then began to sashay to his right, all the time coming closer, now so close that I could clearly see the bars on his dragging wing. He stopped and he stretched. What was wrong? Where was she? He drummed as he strutted again, still convinced in his powers. Had they not always worked before. Had she not said as much. Was he not the master of this ridge top.

He was, but his innate caution was beginning to return. He broke his strut, stretched, and began to walk to my left toward the safety of the woodline, his wildness returning with every step. I whistled; he stopped; he stretched his sinuous neck for the last time and the prize was mine, not his. The sultan performed his customary flop as the life left him and I approached. With each step my sadness increased as I realized what a gift he had bestowed upon me. But I then realized that my sadness was not so much for him. He had performed as he had been programed and he had been programmed well. My sadness was not for him, but for that now lonely and forever silent phantom to the south.

 

[Double Gun]

Silvestris, what a great story.

All, keep them coming, I am really enjoying this thread.

Sterlingworth, as Silvestris once said at our age we were at one time able to write our full name in snow using the yellow snow method. Now we may be lucky to write our initials.

 

[Gut_Pile]

That was an awesome story silvestris! Man what a great morning! I just played the whole hunt in my head. Awesome! Thanks for sharing and taking the time to write out a great story like that.

 

[Booner Killa]

It's tough to call this one! I've had a slew of em that I'll never forget til the day I die. I had three hunts last year that were absolutely three of the best mornings I've ever had in the turkey woods. On two of the three days, I missed toms earlier in the hunt and killed a totally dif bird later in the hunt.
The first bird I ever killed by myself was pretty sweet and will be the story I tell today! I was in college and hunting my girlfriends dad's land at the time. I actually was late gettin up that morning and I heard the bird gobble the first time that morning while crossing the paved road headed to the back of a field I knew a bird roosted in. I hightailed it to the back of the field and eased into a clearcut and set up a deke and sat down rather hastily.
I gave him a light series of yelps and he hammered from about 100 yds just across the clearcut. I shut up and this dude gobbled 20 more times over the next 5 mins. I gave him a fly down cackle followed by some yelps and he fired back again. I sat for another 10 min without sayin a word and turned my head in the opposite direction and gave one last series of yelps. I heard wing beats and turned my head back around and he lit 10 yds from my deke in the middle of the clearcut. At 25 yds and some seriously shakey knees I let him have it. Nice 3 yr old mounted in the man room! I couldn't believe it!

 

[gregg]

I have so many....the one that I'm recalling now happened in Florida 15 or so years ago. I snuck in a cypress swamp where I had roosted a bird the night before, the bird gobbled early and often, I heard a few hens tree yelping very early, I responed with a few of my own, the hens pitched out of the trees earlier than usual, I could barely see out in front of me it was still so dark, now birds were pitching down all over the place I was surrounded but couldn't see any of them....it was just getting light now, I figured the tom was on the ground at this point, I let out a few soft calls, nothing!! Then suddenly off to my left, very close, I heard the tell-tale drumming of a tom, I slowly turned toward the drumming and there he is 7 yards away, strutting, facing away from me, I slide my gun over in his direction wait for him to turn toward me and finally pull the trigger...Whew, that was an unbelievable, up close and personal hunt. To top it off I was hunting with my father, he too shot a bird that morning, boy is it fun to think about that day.

 

[big country rnr]

Here my most memorable turkey hunt!
http://www.nwtf.org/message_board/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=137738&page=1

 

[Gut_Pile]

Great story big country.That bird is a hoss!

 

[gumswamprat]

Mine has to be the first Monday of 09 season. I had scouted several spots and even got pics the Friday before of one gobbler strutting in my food plot. Not having any luck Sat or Sun i decided to take ONE MORE DAY FROM WORK! I set up on an old logging road next to the food plot. I had one bird gobbling about 300 yards from me but he would not budge. Not wanting to give up I just sat there and kept calling every 20 minutes or so. I picked up my glass and purred and clucked a little. I sat my call down beside me and heard something right behind me. Not sure what it was so I turned around. And THERE HE WAS! Not even 5 feet behind me. He saw me and took to the air. He flew about 30 yards to a jake decoy in th food plot. When he hit the ground his feet were moving. I shot twice at him while he was dissappearing down the hill on the other side. Needless to say I missed by a mile but I will never forget that hunt or that feeling when I saw him almost eye to eye!!!

 

[Gut_Pile]

Would love to hear some more stories....post em up if you got one to share!

 

[BremenHunter92]

well mine happened last year and it was my first turkey. my uncle who is the one that tpught me to hunt and fish always puts is in for a drwan hunt. well we gto drown for Joe Curz and we went down the day before season started and found a goood spot where we thought they were at. so the next morning we got up and went to the spot and hit our owl call.... nothing. we prob walked 5 miles that day chasing em. but never got on one till about 12:00 and came across a food plot and ran about 25 turkeys. we tried to get back in the woods and go around and cut them off but when we got there, they werent there. so we went back to get something to eat and decided to go back where we saw all them turkeys and i set up on one side of the food plot and my uncle sat up on the other side. this food plot is about 20 yards wide and about 100 yards long. well i sat down and started calling and after aout an hour 30 min of sitting there i see one coming out of the burnt pines. and he was in full strut! he came right on my decoys and srutted for about 5 min and i got my gun on him and the 3 1/2 4x6's put him down. he had an 11 inch beard with an 1 1/4 spurs and weight 20 lbs! it was the best time ever.

 

[farmasis]

My first three turkey kills...

This is my first turkey ever killed.

I think it was 1994. Because my truck was a new 1994 ranger that year.

A good friend of mine and I went to Hawkinsville to try. I had only hunted a year or two before and although called up a few and took a shot, came up short.

We got on this gobbler at first daylight and tried to call it from it's perch in a swamp to our side, but it decided to fly to the real sounding hens on the other side.

We didn't give up, and persistance paid off, as it flew back to it's perch, then to our side. As it got closer, I waited for my friend to shoot, but he couldn't get a clear shot. So, I raised my gun and pulled the trigger to no avail. Seems I forgot to rack a shell into the chamber of my Mossberg 500. He gave a hard cluck and turned toward the swamp, and I stood up from my blind and racked the shell and shot.

I think we found one pellet in his neck, after we chased him around the marsh beating him to death with the butts of our guns. Not sure why we didn't shoot him again, but we were probably greener than the early spring leaves.

He was a pretty 21 pound 10in beard with 1 in spurs before the massacre.

(repost from wingbone thread)

I made a wingbone from that turkey, and still have it and use it today.

The next year, I was hunting Jones county with a first timer (because now I was a pro.

)

The sun was getting real high, and we were about to call it a morning because we hadn't heard a peep all morning, I pulled out my wingbone for one last try on the edge of a clear cut.

We heard the thunder less than 100 yards away, and ran in shock scrambling to find cover. We had at least 3 toms and a few hens aproach us. The toms stuck to the edge, but we both took nice jakes that morning.

The next year, I was soloing it and had been calling all morning with no luck. I sat on a small opening, and began softly calling trying to stay awake. After all the excitement the years before, I didn't know that sometimes, toms will come in unannounced. That is what this jake did, and it surprised me. However, he got the bigger surprise.