Stories From the Hunt - '05

[SCCO9803]

Saturday May 7th, 610am, zone 343.

I got out to where we were going to hunt at about 515am and got set up. We were set up on a draw of woods that ran bewtween two farm fields, figuring the turkeys would be roosted in the draw. When it began to get light our figuring proved to be right. We had a tom gobbling in the draw quite close to where we were set up. At about 550am two hens flew out of the roost, one went to the west and one to the north out into the fields. The hens were in the field for about 20 minutes when another turkey came walking out of the draw on the west side. I was luckily located on the westside of the draw, because that turkey happened to be a tom. He exited the woods at 45 yards from where I was located. He instantly went into strut and almost as quickly fanned down. I then saw he had a beard and raised the gun. Now I faced a grueling situation was the bird going to come toward me offering a clean shot or walk away over the crown in the field. Well he chose to do the later and turned to head away. I figured it was now or never, and had confidence that the turkey choke I had in the gun would do the job. I fired and the bird dropped. It happened so quickly that I'm not sure if the bird was flopping around or getting up to head off, but I shot my remaining two shells and that was it. I raced out there and had bagged the largest turkey of my career. The bird weighed in at 24 pounds 10.5 ounces, had a 10 3/4 inch beard, and 1 1/4 inch spurs. I paced it off at 48 yards. I know it was a little long of a shot but the result was success. I had a great time and spent it with my dad and some good friends.

*Picture is located on the photo sharing/ turkey contest thread.

[run-n-gun]

Strat you'll get a picture sent your if I get one! I couldn't sleep last night I was so excited. Did you get your fan cleaned/mounted yet?

[Cooter]

May 4 near Gilmanton in Buffalo Co - missed him with the bow(he was about 34yrds instead of the 25 I guessed on). Followed up with the 12 ga. 24.5 lbs, 10.5 in beard, 1.25 in spurs. Had little balls of ice on his beard was so cold the night before. Got a second tag for the 6th season.

[hanson]

I think Joel (jnelson) has been anxiously waiting for this post.

I could have titled it 2 separate things but I decided to combine the title- A Classic Field Hunt for my 1st Gobbler!

To start out with, I'm a turkey hunting novice. I come from the land of ruffed grouse in NW MN, not turkeys & pheasants. After moving south, I previously tried to hunt turkeys once with no success. About all I learned in that outing was how much I hated competition while hunting which I hardly ever had up north. I had concluded that was the end of my turkey hunting career until I owned my own land.

Well, since then, I'd been chatting with Joel online and he convinced me to come down and turkey hunt with him this year. Obstacle #1 was obtaining a license. I applied...and successfully drew a tag for season G. Little did I know that season G fell on the MN Fishing Opener. Oh well!! If I had a chance to bag my first turkey, the walleyes could wait.

The season is drawing near and Joel tells me he has a field that the birds should be in when my season opens. He said they have been in the same field for a number of days in a row. In fact, he tells me on the phone that there were 4 Toms, 2 Jakes, and 6 Hens (Am I even close on those numbers??) in the field the morning before we were going to hunt it. Well... that fact alone sure didn't help me sleep that night.

3:15 am on Friday, May 13th rolls around and my alarm clock is squaking. I don't think I've ever awoken so easily at 3:15 in the morning as I did this morning. I sort of woke up, jumped in the pickup, and headed down to meet Joel with a big cup of coffee in tow.

To make a short story even shorter, we got to the field and proceeded to the corner to set up. Joel set up the 3 dekes while I prepared the blind. We settled in and waited. Joel said this will be a 'Classic Field Hunt' and didn't anticipate doing much calling, but to rather let the decoys do the calling when, and if, birds did enter the field.

So there we patiently wait, IN THE RAIN!!! What a bummer that rain was. The rain hadn't stopped for 4 days so why should it stop when my turkey season opens. It didn't.

As we sat there contemplating stategy, I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. Like an (Contact US Regarding This Word), I tell Joel something just landed in the field. Yeah, it was a turkey and it was approximately 70+ yards straight out from our position. Not 10 seconds later, a 2nd bird emerged from the treeline and proceeded into the plowed field. The 2nd bird had an obvious beard but neither of them moved our direction. As they were out there, another bird made its presence at the field edge and I even noticed this one was a little different from the other two- its head was a lot lighter in color from a distance.

This 3rd bird also seamed to be interested in our decoys where the other 2 weren't. He proceeded to follow the grass along the edge of the woods towards our decoys. He stops to do a small strut and let out a gobble. You can only imagine my excitement now. With gun at the ready and the Tom sitting about 50-60 yards out, I'm starting to shake really bad and take much deeper, shortened breaths. I think Joel whispering to me that the Tom was coming our direction didn't calm me down at all.

When we were initially setting up, I let Joel know my distances and landmarks for a comfortable shot. Not too long after the Tom gobbled, he had passed the tree marking the end of my comfortable range. He then proceeded off the grass into the plowed field quartering towards us. When he made this move, I got concerned because he was no longer heading towards the dekes (was this good or bad, I don't know...)

Joel told me he was going to call to get the Tom to present a good shot. I said I was ready and don't remember much after that. The Tom stuck his head out, and I touched off, and there was a flopping pile of feathers in the rain soaked, muddy field.

We ran out and I picked the bird up and got a first hand lesson on how powerful a turkey can be. It was not quite a prizefight as I tried to keep control of the Toms legs while wings were flapping and I finally took care of him.

The one small point I overlooked was I had never shot this gun before. It was Joel's full camo Browning Gold Hunter tweaked for turkeys that he had full confidence in. I had full confidence in my shooting ability so we put 2 & 2 together and called it good. I'd have rather not done it this way but circumstances sort of required it. The end result was very successful and satisfying.

Thank you Joel for the AWESOME morning!! I don't know what else to say. I think I was more pumped that the plan came together and I didn't miss the shot at the critical moment. I did learn that its one thing to hunt for yourself, but when you enlist the help of a buddy, you don't want to let him down!

Here's the scoop...

40 yard shot.

1 gobbler.

1 wet Hanson & Joel.

The gobbler's stats:

- 22 pounds, 8 ounces

- 11 inch beard

- spurs were 1 inch & 1-1/8 inch

I am so proud of this bird for so many reaons, being harvested very late in the season after previously being hunted is definitely one of them. Being my first turkey PERIOD, is definitley another.

(I guess I have to apologize for the photos. The turkey looked like a wet rat and was going to be difficult to photograph due to the non-stop rain!!)

The fan, beard, and spurs are currently at my taxidermist (my great uncle Jack Hanson). Thanks Jack for helping me out!

[TJFISHER]

Hanson....Great story ..It was a real pleasure meeting you today at Uncle Jack's..I didn't realize that was your first turkey. If you said it there I missed it, CONGRATS.....and of course Uncle Jack willl make it look good. Never tried turkey hunting but may have to,

[USPENAMC]

That turkey looks like my wifes hair in the morning what a site lol congratulations.

[ChuckN]

Nice turkey Chris!! Way to get that gobbler right away and go fishin!!

[Borch]

Way to go Chris! That's awsome Tom!

Joel pulls through again.

Nice job.

Borch

[Ray Esboldt]

Well, I hunted a grand total of 4 hours and 15 minutes this year in two states and bagged two birds. That's good, I guess. I am kind of disappointed not to have spent a little more time out there, but how can you pass up a tom first day or not?

Here's my Wisconsin hunt summary from this past Wednesday. I arrived at my southern Zone 6 area on Tuesday night. My wife's aunt and uncle host me for this hunt on their farm and grant me access to about 1,000 acres of land. It don't get any better than that. Man, I love my wife (and her relatives). Her uncle told me of a group of birds that have been using the same area for a week. We checked the area out late Tuesday, and sure enough, they were still using it. I had a place to start.

Wednesday morning, I get situated in the woods about 4:45 AM. It was warm and breezy, but had not started raining yet. About 5:05 AM a tom lights up on roost probably within 200 yards of me, maybe closer. I let him gobble a few more times, grabbed the box call, and ever so lightly scratched it. Instant gobble. He knows where I am, and that's all the calling I did until he hit the ground. At 5:30 after about 20 more gobbles, I here him launch from roost. He flies right over my head and banks right. He hits the ground gobbling. I scratch the box call again and he gobbles. He finally works within 50 yards of me, but is too far and has too much brush between him and I. I then hear another bird launch from roost and it lands in a tree right behind me. 5 minutes later it glides down, again over my head, and joins the other bird. It's a hen. The tom is still gobbling and strutting and spitting and drumming and even getting a little closer to me. He's fired up, but I still don't have a shot. This goes on until about 6:00 AM when the birds finally walk off to check out 3 other birds across a gully.

The other 3 birds consist of a tom, a jake (not sure why his presence was tolerated), and a hen. The other tom gobbles a couple times and goes into strut. Well, that puts the first tom into a frenzy. He breaks into a sprint, chases the tom and jake away from the one hen and goes into strut. For the next hour, I watch this tom hold off the other two male birds and keep the hens close. It was a neat site to see.

For reasons I don't understand, one of the hens runs off into the woods. The dominant tom is beside himself gobbling his head off. Five minutes later the other hen just plain walks away. This tom now is hopping mad. He gobbles and chases the other two males as if to say this is all their fault. Boy was it ever. I grabbed the box call and broke into a series of cuts and yelps. The other two birds just beat feet at my decoys with the other tom in pursuit. They made it within 20 yards and banked right leaving the other guy exposed to gunfire. I was going to wait but he took a step off course and had to let loose. He dropped at about 45 yards, but managed to roll about another 150 yards down the hill. That's further than I wanted to shoot, but the end result was good.

That's it. I can't wait for next year. And, I fully expect to hunt quite a bit longer then. I ain't spoiled yet.

Tale of the tape:

Weight: 20lbs 12oz.

Beard: 10 inches

Spurs: 7/8th inches

Time of Kill: 7:15 AM

Finally, a hurried picture because by this time it was pouring.

[Borch]

All right Ray!

It's good to hear some success stories!

Borch

[Hotspotter]

Ray:

You the man.....short time afield usually means a good deal of planning, preparation, and hard work.

And you had me worried, trying to talk you out of taking a jake......instead you shoot a fat tom with a 10" rope!!!

Last time I feel bad for you turkeyslayer .

And i'm with you, i don't think I'd ever pass up a good tom like that on your first day, hour, or minute.

Joel

[Hotspotter]

Good job Hanson, that was a fun morning. It was beautiful to see that white and blue-headed bird strut his way into us. He even ripped off a gobble for us at the dekes. Funny how 5 minutes of holding the gun up like that is akin to 6 hours of doing anything else. You absolutely crushed that bird. Even though he was flapping pretty good, he was more bloody than I'm used to seeing at 40 yards.

Like Chris said, these birds had been hunted the previous three seasons; actually pretty hard. 2 other toms had been shot in the same field we were hunting, so I thought these birds would at the very least be wary, and probably call-shy to boot.

It's a phenomenal spot, just one of those places that every year, turkeys seem to want to be.

Thought I'd try something new to show everyone a visual of how our hunt unfolded, along with the text. This makes it easier to follow the story. So here's a try at an edited aerial photo.

I'm just glad on such a miserable morning we didn't have to go after them, and they came to us. Made my lazy self much less grumpy. As you can see from the photo, there's much more turkey woods and a few big hills we would've tackled next, had plan "A" not worked out.

Joel

[Ray Esboldt]

Joel,

Technically, I passed on a jake as he came into range before the bird I killed.

And, you're right. It's nice when Plan A works. Now, as an experienced turkey hunter that knows how it really can be, you have to explain to Chris that Plan A works about 1 in 50 times. He needs a 12 hour day in the woods next year.

Congrats, Chris! The first bird is always the best, but only makes you hungrier to do it again.

[HC Eye Hunter]

My turkey season began on Sunday May 8, 2005. Up till that date and because of the weather, prescouting was very unproductive and I had even contemplated bypassing the season and not purchase my turkey license. Then I thought what the heck, if I don’t go out turkey hunting it would bother me to no end that I didn’t at least try.

The area I was hunting is a new area this year giving only five licenses out per five day season. Most of the birds were really spread out and seamed to be relocating and moving constantly around to different areas. The one thing that I had heard recently from other hunters is that the toms were separated from the hens. Knowing this information I figured if I do find a tom without hens he may be easier to call than at other times of the turkey season.

Opening mourning began for me at 4:30am with partly cloudy skies, temps in the 50s and a brisk wind from the ESE. It was disgustingly the same kind of weather that I had prescouting! Oh well what can you do.

The first place I went to try to locate a tom resulted in nothing. After relocating to my second spot everything changed. Five minutes into my arrival the river bottom lit up with the gobbling of a loan tom about a quarter mile away. Finally, I was on a bird!

I went and parked my car in a place where the tom couldn’t see me I loaded up my gear and went towards where I had last heard the bird. BUSTED! Yep I got busted, he had already entered the field that I was walking in and he busted me.

Keeping a mental note of where the bird was in the field and where he was gobbling earlier that mourning I had a real good Idea where to setup the next mourning.

Day 2 Monday May 9, 2005 skies were cloudy winds from the ESE at 10mph and the forecast said rain likely by 6:00 am.

4:00 AM comes early but I knew I needed to get down to the area while it was still dark or the tom may spook.

I arrived at my parking area at 4:20 am and hiked the edge of the river and last year’s corn field about a quarter mile to my hunting sight. I found what I thought was a good tree to sit against and a place that looked great for decoying in a tom. I put the decoys about 20 yards out into the field from where I would be sitting. Still dark I was setup and ready for anything.

Finally it started to get light, the song birds were chirping and the world was coming alive. I still hadn’t heard the tom but I was pretty sure he wasn’t to far from where I was setup.

All of a sudden the river bottom ignited in gobbling, the tom was there and he was close!

Listening and knowing the tom was still in his roost I remained silent until his gobbling became more intense. After some time I let out a couple of series of soft yelps with my diaphragm call. The tom returned back with an enthusiastic gobble becoming increasingly excited with my soft yelps. Knowing that I had his attention I quieted down while his gobbling intensified.

After a minute or two an eruption of wings came from the tree tops, the tom was leaving his perch and he was coming down to pay me a visit. The bird landed about 80 yards long of my setup. The tom didn’t appear to know where the sound came from so I gave him a few more soft yelps.

Bingo! He saw my hen and jake decoys and began to work my way nearing the gap quickly. At about forty yards he went into full strut and with love on his mind entered into my decoys.

I sat patiently, gun on knee, safety off and ready for the twenty yard shot. The bird remained in full strut amongst the two decoys paying special attention to the hen decoy.

With the red bead of my shotgun on his head I remained motionless waiting for that right moment. The bird was definitely close enough for the shot but facing me in full strut and in the decoys I didn’t dare fire. I wanted to wait until he offered me a clean shot with his neck stretched and away from the decoys.

The time was here and it was now! The tom left his strut position, turned sideways and started to move giving me a clean head shot. With a squeeze of the trigger the game was over and the bird went down hard from the force of the 12 gauge. The shot was perfect with the gobbler’s head receiving most of the full pattern of 6 shot at the edge of the decoys.

My electric scale varied each time I weighed him so the weight varied from 18.9#s to 21#s with an 8” beard.

[Borch]

Way to go HC Eye Hunter!

A great hunt and bird!

Borch

[bigbucks]

Great job & for that matter congrats to all the guys that scored a bird this year.

[TomBow]

Awesome stories!

Here's wha'happen.

The wife and I, she of the taken-one-bird-so-far clan and me with but 3-so-far-total, head to public land, would have had permission on adjacent private but some person of questionable upbringing decided to trespass and kill the landowners desire to let ANYONE hunt his property. But enough of my whining....

Our hunt started May 9, Sunday and there was but 1 truck in the parking lot when we arrived at o-dark thirty. Not bad we thought and geared up and headed to the turkey removal zone. Our travels were cut short when I blinked twice on the headlight and spotted yon other hunting dude waving us from his preselected hunt location. We obligingly, waved back and headed off for a different turkey removal zone, not wishing to booger up the guys hunt. (dang, we ARE neighborly!) I'd been on this property a few times er three before and new of other spots that may just be the ticket for our turk-kill-atory desires. We get blind up, gear stowed, chairs at the ready and one hen deke out. Now, I don't have much luck with dekes but can't resist trying it on the first day, just to see if one of those TEEVEE-type hunts, where the gobblers fall all over themselves heading for the deke, might just happen to me and the wife someday. So we put her out 10 yards from the blind. My plan was to arrow myself a fat and tasty bird while my wife planned on dropping a load of 20-guage 6's on the noggin of her bird. A bold plan indeed but not out of the realm of possibilities, right? We settled in for the wait and began to hear the music of the wily Thunder-Chickens, a magical song that causes the heart to race a bit quicker and the eyes to widen a bit, too. About that time I noticed that yonder decoy was a bit leaned-over too far, in a severly non-natural turkey like posture. Kee-rap, I'd better get on out there and investigate. Sure enough, the stake for said-deke was busted and so ended Ms.Deke's luring ability for the day. She'd just have to hang with us inside the blind. Like I said before, never had much luck with them fake-type foam turkey replicas.

Got tucked back in the blind, made sure the vid-cam was at the ready and noticed the gobbles were sounded a bit closer than before. Some yelping, clucking and purrs had one of the big chickens fired up and he might just be headed our way.

Let me just take a minute to show my extreme generousity; A few months ago, after we confirmed that, yes, the turkey gods had again blessed us with tags, we had made a bet on a Nascar event and, lo and behold, I had won! (don't happen often!) The bet was for first-shot-at-a-turkey privileges and it was all mine! At the time, we figured that if two legal birds came in, I'd silently arrow one and she could get the second bird. Time passed and the night before our hunt was to start this year, I had a twinge of generosity (probably spurred on by the fact that I had arrowed a bird (first bow bird) in NE in early April, already this year), so I decided we'd flip to see who got first shot in MN.

Back to the blind, I flipped a coin, she said "Tails" and sure enough, the quarter landed "tails".

It was about sunrise when we noticed that the one bird gobbling closest to us sounded like two birds...or there was an echo. I turned the camera toward the right, where the gobbles were coming from and got back out of shotgun-line-o-fire, hoping to avoid high speed copper-coated lead shot cranial bonding activity. I peaked out the window and saw a large black bird walking from the edge of the woods. This weren't no crow, boys, this was the famous Thunder Chicken and he was doing his best to out shout his brethren. That's about the time that I noticed a definite change in the tone of my wife's whispers, she was just a bit excited, as was I. She tried her best to keep the turkey on the camera while I did my best to calm her down just a bit. I tell you what, camera-izing your hunts just ain't easy and the bottom line for us was we're here to take a bird home, if we get him on camera, great if not, well...camera film is not nearly as tasty as Those Big Black Chickens! I quietly called as the bird strutted about 60 yards out and tried to drown out his unseen friend, who was also gobbling. My wife had the gun up and ready but I urged her to wait until the bird got closer. It's tough when the bird starts to walk the other direction but sometimes, they do turn around...and this one did just that. He headed right back toward us and gobbled purdy for the camera a few times. Back toward the woods he walked and closed the distance. I said "take him when you can" when I figured he was in range and I heard the click of the safety and the roar of the mighty 20-guage! The bird lept into the air amidst a cloud of feathers and touched back down and headed off at a dead run. Alas, his escape was not to be, at about 50 yards, he rolled over face first and began preparing himself for the oven. I think my wife said "I got him!" about 50 times in the next 60 seconds! I was just as excited as she was. It had been the shortest opening day I've ever had. Her second bird ever was down for the count! I love my wife and the fact that she digs this turkey chasing deal as much as me? Well, dreams do come true!

Specs: Live weight (well DEAD-weight, they are tough to weigh live!): 25 lbs.

Spurs: 1.25" and sharp

Beard: 10" even.

Me, well, I just couldn't put the combo together and never had bird within range. The last day was 42 degrees, 20 mph winds and downpouring which made me go home early. Hey, I got to see ALL the weather though and watch my wife bag her bird no. 2!

[NELS-BELLS]

Hi all-

I've inserted a photo of my recent Turkey Hunt down near Morton, MN. As you will see it was a successful hunt. I was fortunate enough to have a my kids with me when I shot the bird. They were as excited as I was. I think I have some future Turkey hunters.

My Dad and I got the kids up at 4:30AM. We got to the area we hunt at about 5:30 and heard a turkey gobble as we crossed the alfalfa field to the woods. So the three of us (because Grandpa had to drive back home and get his other gun) set up just inside the tree line and started to make some hen calls. After about 25 minutes Peter blurted out in his regular voice "Dad, there's a turkey". I turned and looked into the woods and spotted the bird at about 30 yards. It was clearly a Tom due to its bright red color. I was pretty sure I saw a beard also. I was then able to raise the gun and shoot before he disappeared. The rest is history. That was about 6AM. By the time Grandpa got back we were walking out, carrying our Turkey.

20 lbs.

8 3/4" beard

7/8" spurs

Nels

[tealitup]

Nels-Bells

Great job, not with getting the turkey, but for taking your kids out for the hunt. Wonderful to see!

P.S. O.K. good job on the turkey too.

[Borch]

Great hunts guys!

Very nice birds as well!

[Hotspotter]

Just relaying a story from a buddy that hunted some adjacent property to ours this morning with a bow.

Adam headed to the top of a pretty steep ridge late last night to get set up for morning. Birds roost all along the shoulder of the ridge, so he was afraid to blow them out of the trees by hiking up the massive ridge in the morning.

Gobbles woke him up in the blind at first light, and Adam got everything ready. He set up the dekes before sleeping, so tree yelping was in order. Adam shut up after that, and within a few minutes, he had a gobbling tom 30 yards out. There were at least 5 other birds up on the ridge within a few hundred yards, and they were gobbling too.

As the bird strutted outside of bow range, he made his way behind the blind, then closer, spitting and drumming the whole way. Adam was trying to peek out the back window when he heard some thumping......it was another tom standing on his jake decoy.

After some shakiness and steadying the arrow, he pummeled the longbeard with the gobbler gullotine, right in the neck. That broadhead is the real deal, especially after i saw the broken/sliced neck! That thing does some damage.

The bird hasn't been weighed yet, but it looked shy of 20lbs. Spurs were probably almost 1 1/4" tho, and hooked. Beard looked about 8 inches. Had to head to work!

Joel

[Hotspotter]

Nels:

Beautiful photo, and nice story. You should submit it for the turkey hunting photo contest under the "photo sharing" forum. However, next year i think that kids should have their own division, because the rest of us ugly hunters don't have a chance against photos like yours!

Joel

[Ruttin' Buck]

Felt obligated to put my $.02 in for this season. I just got back yesterday from hunting all 7 days of season G.

As you probably know, it was 7 days of rain, wind and quite cold for the first few. Not real conducive to hunting the wiley birds.

In a nutshell, here's the deal. This was my 6th season. Prior to this season I was 5 for 5 hunting either season G or H. I felt like I had these late season birds down pat with my last one weighing in at 23.5 lbs, 9.5" beard and 1 3/8" long spurs.

I hunt in an area with quite a few birds. I wish I would have logged all of my hunts from seasons past because I have to say that my average daily count of birds is probably 15 birds per day. That would include when the hunts ended at noon each day and we'd glass fields in the afternoon. We'd see 30-50 birds a day back then. I saw 11 birds over the past 7 days hunting from 4:00 in the morning to 5:00 in the afternoon with only an hour for lunch.

I heard up to 8 different gobblers on a few of the mornings, but only saw 3 toms. I was able to work a few within 30 yards in wooded bluff country and never saw them. I had a jake at 10 yards but let him pass as I hoped for a sunny day.

The wind is probably the toughest condition as sounds don't travel well and the birds seem edgy. I hope it calms down a bit for you season H folks.

That's why they call it hunting!

[Cooter]

May 20, second bird of the season(two tags this year). 21 lb, 10.5 beard, typical 2 yr old spurs. Fifth tom taken off that farm this year. He was lonely... for a while

[QuackAttack]

Last season in Minnesota. We've always applied as it is a safe bet you will draw. This year with the poo-ee weather for the last month has the birds behaving differently from previous years. We had to resort to gorilla tactics. Saturday we had the big flock of 5 Toms, 2 Jakes and 3 hens

come within 100 yards, the two jakes broke off and got close.....then the rain came. The toms came out of strut and the flock disolved. They all stayed within 200 yards and looked like they were sleeping. After an 1 hr of setting there in rain we decided to make a move as there were 3 of the toms about 50yds from a finger of woods. We crawled back and went around (way around). Still raining we came up to within 60 yards of the birds, but could only see 1 of the 3, the alfalfa was tall and the birds were just hunkering down. We were getting ready to make the final belly crawl when we were busted. They moved off fairly quickly putting as they went through the downpour. We busted tail all the way around and were able to intersept them again. This time they were real close to the woods, I had one in my sites at 20 ft but backed off to get my dad in position (got greedy). Busted again. Day over, had to dry off.

The next day I was able to ambush a gobbler and about an hour and a half after that my old man ambushed one 100yards from where mine was taken. My dad was watching my bird in the bics when I took him and I was watching in the bics when his was taken. I don't need any lectures on the dangers of hunting this way. We are the only hunters on this property. We don't go creaping around without the other one knowing it.

My first morning was trashed as a road grader stopped for 45 min to pick morels on our property 100yrd from my setup (with the machine running the whole time) The only birds I could bring in was this bearded hen, the toms wanted nothing to do with her I watched them treat her like she was diseased for 2 days!

Here are the shots of my dad and me.

Congratulations on all who scored, enjoy the feast!