A plan came together

[bigbucks]

Hunted Season C this year, which ends today.

 

Wednesday got up to hunt, but hadn't set a blind out the night before, decided if it was raining I would skip the first morning, as the next day's forecast was better.  Scouted/observation hunted from my truck around some of my properties that are bordered by roads Wednesday night.  Did see some across the road from one farm I had permission on, but it was crappy & I could tell they were going to head to roost over there.  Walked & called earlier on a different farm that night, but saw one hen.

 

Thursday was colder than all get out, but dry, although overcast.  Went to a different farm close to home & setup where my cousin had seen am birds when he hunted during A season.  Saw nothing, heard 1 or 2 gobbles not to far behind me, but he never showed.  Had to work so only hunted til 7:30.  Thursday night it was my daughter's birthday, so we had to go out to supper, so no hunt.

[bigbucks]

Friday am was cold, but not quite as bad, I think I was just better geared up for it.  Had thought about setting blind on another farm that is normally my #1 spot, but when I'd driven there on my way home from work Thursday night there were birds out there, so I decided not to educate them.  In the am took off with my blind & decoys right down the middle of this basically 80 acre field.  It has a ditch across it, a couple of little brush fingers & it's rolling, so you can only see about the N third of it when you pull off the road.  I walked about two thirds of the way down & setup my blind & dekes on the transition line from corn stubble to hay.  Basically I was almost smack dab in the middle of 80 acres of open ground.  I'd seen countless birds over the years come out from various places & walk N basically up this seam.  I thought my strutter would probably pull them in from quite a ways if they could see him.

 

 

I heard a few gobbles from a bird in the woods to the W, in the right of my picture, but he never showed.  I was calling occasionally & at some point I thought I saw the top of a fan & then maybe two against the woods in the SW corner of the field.  I decided I was seeing things, but then after a bit I could tell I wasn't imagining it.  Soon there were 5 fans & a couple of hens, I think, one hen was mostly white.  They were 300+ yards away, this field is half a mile long.  They work out a little & then work E, so they're straight S of me & invisible behind that rise in the field.  I don't know if they're heading E or have turned N & are coming up the seam right to me or what.  None of these birds have made a peep before they appeared or after.

 

[bigbucks]

I don't know if these birds are coming, going or already gone.  It's probably 6:45 at this point.  Then I see one headed back WNW, fairly quickly, all of a sudden there are 8 of them & they all look like jakes.  They are under 300 yards, but not much.  Then I see a couple of hens, including the white one, working along the same line, but even further N.  Then I see part of a fluffed out gobbler straight S down the seam & decide he must be the boss tom & actually drove the jakes off.  4 of the jakes have now disappeared in the woods to the right, but there are still 12 turkeys in the field.  At this point I'm wondering where in the world these are all coming from, it's nuts, still no turkey sounds.  At some point they're looking at my dekes & acting like they want to work my way, the closest birds are maybe 250 yards, 10 seconds if they commit & come a running.  All of a sudden they all start moving very quickly & exit the field where the first 4 went.  I'm think what the heck.  At 7:10 or 15 it's obvious they're gone & I'm thinking I need to move my blind down to the S end next to the woods somewhere for Saturday am.  When I'm standing up out of the blind I can now see over the rise & see a 6' tall turkey in the edge of the neighboring woods SE of where the birds were.  Aah, no wonder they spooked off, Bozo spooked them.  He probably did nothing wrong, but from my perspective of course.

 

I packed up & hustled down there & found the spot 50 yards E of the SW corner with a brush pile behind it, that I will be putting my blind at right away every year from now on.  I've scouted & hunted this place a lot, but it's now obvious that's THE SPOT.

 

Went back to my Thursday am farm on Friday night, walking, calling, scouting, nothing.  I didn't push it too hard day 4 of 4am wake up was coming & I had a lot of confidence in my next am spot.

 

[bigbucks]

Does anybody ever really get to their spot when they'd like to?  Seems like I'm always pushing it, especially on the am hunts.  I make the half mile walk down the open field to the blind & get there right about legal shooting, 5:35ish.  20 yards from the blind I hear the first gobble & it's maybe 100 yards behind the blind & is answered & answered & answered, by more birds all in this little 1-2 acre strip.  I'm praying none of them can see me & thinking as long as they come to this field & don't go S it could be a really short hunt.

 

It's not long & I can hear walking a fluffing right behind me.  Probably 6:05 a hen steps out 25 yards W of me, then there are 5 hens, then there are a bunch of jakes.  Finally I sort through the PILE of turkeys within 30 yards of my blind & there are 6 jakes, the 5 hens & 1 big long beard.  He's strutting around & fanning right in the middle of all these birds.  They're so close together any shot would be a 3 for 1.  I'm almost for sure going to get a turkey quick, but I only want 1 & definitely want that certain 1.  Then hens swing right in front of the blind directly N of me pointed E.  They separate a bit & then in the gap between the two groups stuts Mr. Tom.  He sticks his head up a bit & kaboom!

 

Here his is dead at 6:15 am with I think the jakes still right there.  I never put my decoys out or called once.  I'd decided I wouldn't do either until about 7:30.  I figured if they wanted to come here I'd just let them.

 

Here he is close up.

[bigbucks]

Here's a few more pics.  I think it was my heaviest bird, if not second heaviest at 25 pounds even.  I totally forgot about signing up for the contest this year, haven't been on site as much since it split up.  11 1/4" beard, 1 spur was 1", one broken off about 5/8".

 

[ANYFISH2]

Awesome bird bigbucks!  Great write up.

 

Come back to the site more often, always enjoy your local reports.

[pumper317]

Awesome, that sounds like a lot of fun!

 

Congrats on a very nice bird.

[monstermoose78]

Congrats on a great bird

[PFUNK]

Congrats on the great bird! Just love it when a plan comes together! All the sweat, headaches, dog tired mornings, and failures vanish in a hurry as you soak in the satisfaction of that moment. Love it. Way to make it happen!

Edited May 2, 2017 by PFUNK

[Borch]

Awesome bird and retelling the hunt!

[DonBo]

[rkhinrichs]

Nice!

[bigbucks]

Took a HS kid from church out Saturday am, Sunday pm & Wednesday pm.  Saw at least 10 birds on the different properties we hunted in those times.  We couldn't get to where I had my blind setup last night, which is where I killed my bird on 4/29, because there were turkeys between us & the blind.  There was no way to sneak to within range of the 3 toms out in the middle of this 1/2 mile long 80+ acres of field.  We tried to skirt them keeping brush & humps in the field between us to get down to the blind, but half way there we could see a tom & a hen probably within 50 yards of the blind.  It was about 6:30 when we go to the property, as he had baseball practice.  It really doesn't matter there when you arrive there can be birds out there at any time.

 

Anyway we realized the initial 3 birds had left the fields, so now after starting down the East side, we need to cross back to the West side to stay hidden at least part way to these birds.  We crossed & were able to sneak to within 381 yards according to his range finder.  Which is at least 30 yards beyond our effective turkey load range...  There just was no other way to get closer as the woods along the West side is of the field is a place that we can't get permission to hunt.  They have their own group of guys.  We sat up on this ridge on the edge of the field me about 10 yards behind in the fenceline, up little higher so I could see the birds & I called.  The birds were in the middle of the open ground almost all the way to the S end, working S.  I tried calling, the tom's head would come up & he'd look our way, but he wasn't leaving his girlfriend.  They finally worked far enough S that there was another hump in the field in between us & them.  As this was about to happened I decided to try my other push button box call & I was pretty sure he greatly preferred that one.  We headed S, paralleling them.  We cut the distance to about 200 yards & then the field flattened out enough we couldn't go any more without them seeing us.  We got down on our hands & knees to see how much closer we could get by crawling.  We were doing that when I came up upright on my knees to relocate the birds & I realized they were head right for us & had cut that 200 yards almost in half.  I said they're coming, tuck into the field edge as best you can & I crawled back into the fenceline against a tree about 10 yards N where again I could see better.  They were just milling, but I could see the tom's head at about 80 yards or so, sticking over the crest in the hayfield.  I called a little more & the hen passed him as they kept working our way.  Pretty soon he can see both birds from where he's laying on his right side in a sod covered old dead furrow.  He hissed they're 60 yards.  I said I think they're still coming, just wait.  I called a little more & they started walking our way more, although angling across slightly to our right to the SW corner of the field.  We knew they'd been roosting in that woods.

 

The tom is now separated by a few yards, but the hen is closer.  He said they're 53 & they took a few more steps, but still angling.  We were not hidden very well other than our outlines were broken up well & I feared the gig was up.  I said can you shoot in that position, he's a teenager, of course he can...  I said kill him.

 

He shot, the bird lurched & hopped into flight.  I could tell he'd taken a couple of hard hits in the body, but his head was up.  He flew about 35-40 yards into a dead elm tree & tried to land on a branch about 30 feet off the ground.  As soon as he dropped his feet on the branch & tried to land he catapulted right over the branch & did a face plant down through the dead branches & brush to the ground.  I have to admit it looked pretty dang funny.

 

He was still flopping or something & I knew he might not be dead, so I said run up there & finish him if you need to, he's hurt pretty bad.  He tried to walk away, although not very fast or strongly.  He snapped a shot in the brush going away at maybe 35 yards & the bird turned to his right & stopped.  I think he was pretty well done, but of course he now had a good shot & dispatched him with the head shot.  I think his sideways, kitty wampas, prone positioning effected his finishing the initial shot & jerked him a bit off target.  I've had similar positioning on a stalk before & missed sometimes, they can be tough angles.

 

I should say straight off we were on private land & the only ones who had permission at that time.  We also could see well around us & knew we weren'y being stalked by or stalking towards any other hunters.  Great bird period, especially for a first bird.  19 lbs, 9" beard,3/4" spurs, a two year-old almost for sure I'd think.

 

 

Edited May 11, 2017 by bigbucks

[ANYFISH2]

Fantastic!

 

381 yards and only 30 yds to far!  I need your turkey loads!!

[leech~~]

5 hours ago, bigbucks said:

Took a HS kid from church out Saturday am, Sunday pm & Wednesday pm.

 

 

Way to be a good role model and mentor to a young person.  I'm sure he will remember this hunt for a long time! Nice Bird.

[bigbucks]

It was a lot of fun, pretty much just as much fun as shooting one myself if not more.

 

[Borch]

Very exciting hunt with the usual ups and downs.

 

Congrats!