Got him!

[1eyeReD]

I feel very fortunate as I killed my first gobbler this past Friday on my first day of the D season at exactly the 2 hour mark into the hunt. I literally could not fall asleep the night before and left the house at 2:45 in the morning and drove 2 hrs down to a piece of state property that I frequent in the fall to bowhunt deer and have seen turkeys roosted at eye level with me in a treestand several times. This is the same land where I called in a gobbler for my friend last year and he tagged it as his first as well.

I got him after I bumped him too which provided for a pretty interesting experience. I think he was the only tom I heard all morning from the blind, but he shut up after about 30 min of dialogue with him so I went looking for him even with an orange vest on! The orange was because I was on public so I put on orange during walks between sits for safety. About a mile and 4 sits later, I couldn't get anything to gobble so I decided to come back to the blind to re-strategize. Right as I got near the spot where I heard him that morning, there he was in the middle of the non-motorized DNR forestry road, standing about 70 yds away as I cleared the bend. I believe I bumped him because as soon as I saw him I jumped into the ditch and I started calling only to have him gobble back but sounded way further down the road.

I was pretty bummed but I thought I'd try calling him back so I decided to take the ditch and gained another 50 yds or so and climbed back up toward the road. With a big stump for cover, I peaked my head out and could see him feeding in the open now heading for my blind! As he turned away and was about 80 yds away at this point, I managed to belly crawl out fast and steak my hen decoy in on the forestry road and back to position then started calling. While softly yelping and purring, I slowly pointed my gun in his direction and positioned myself and he started closing in but ever so slowly. No strutting or gobbling, just a few steps, pecks at the ground and stopping to look at the decoy. As he made his way closer within the 50 yd range I stopped calling and let him continue.

Making sure he wasn't just some other bird, I didn't take the shot at what I eyeballed as 40 yds because I couldn't tell if there was a beard and he never opened up the fan either. He just seemed more curious than anything. I let him get closer and finally saw the beard bouncing up and down and decided I'd take the shot at 30. As he crossed that mark, his head was all over the place so I placed the bead a little above the base of the neck and squeezed. He didn't even flop. I can move now so I pulled out the rangefinder and what do ya know, 28 yds!

I hooted, hollered, threw air punches, and tagged my bird.

Wished I had a "in the field" hero shot, but I was solo and no one was around to help so I stopped at a friend's house on the way home and had him take a pic on the sidewalk for me as well as help weigh the bird on his fishing scale.

8" beard

Both spurs were 7/8"

My friend weighed him for me on a fish scale, but we didn't get a picture of the scale. He was 21lbs 15 oz.

Good luck to all who are still going out there!!

[Borch]

Way to go and a nice bird for your first!

[leech~~]

Fun stuff, nice first bird.

I wish I could say I got all my birds like a H. S. Strut video, but nope!

[monstermoose78]

Congrats 1eye

[DrJ]

What a great story. Now next year sign up and get on a team.We can always use more players

[mws4dux]

Congrats...sounds like a great hunt

[123fish]

Nice job 1eye. You will always remember your first one.

[1eyeReD]

What a great story. Now next year sign up and get on a team.We can always use more players

DrJ, I thought about it actually, but decided that I shouldn't since I only had Fri and Sun to hunt due to family obligations on Saturday. Next year, I think I will. It's a lot of fun keeping up with all the teams and their success!

[IlliniWalli]

great job 1eye

sounds like a fun hunt, congrats

[sticknstring]

Great looking bird - congrats!