Jonny P Takes a Great Tom! - With Pics!

[Hotspotter]

I had the pleasure of taking my good friend Jonny out on his first turkey hunt this "B" season in MN, and Jon connected on Tuesday afternoon with a great gobbler. Jon's an experienced hunter as well as guide for about everything in the northwoods, so this SE MN experience I knew would be a fun one.

The first rooster pheasant crow at 50 yards almost scared him to death Woodpeckers galore, vines and other tangly foliage, prickly stuff; seemingly new and unpleasant experiences for the man.

We were into birds pretty thick. At last count, Jon passed on a bearded hen, 3 jakes at two different instances, and he also unknowingly passed on a nice Tom strutting 20 yards to his left; just out of his view. Keeping him from shooting varmints also proved difficult.

I'll let him tell the many stories, but will share some great pictures.

Calling in the bird - Chris Wall's Walnut Pot and Walnut Striker

Our Cover - Double Bull Matrix

Our Setup - Primos B-Mobile

The Bird - Almost looks like a Rio

The Spurs

Limbhanger - Too much bird, too little limb

Hamburger Hill

Secret Weapon Striker

STATS

Bird - Tom

Weight - 24lbs, 14oz.

Spurs - 1 3/16"

Beard - 9 11/16"

NWTF Score - 68!!!

Joel

[Coach1310]

Great story Joel. Thanks for sharing.

Congrats on the great tom Johnny!

[LABS4ME]

Good Job Jonny!!! Way to go! A little funnerer than pushing the Butterball to the cashier in the shopping cart isn't it?

Now if we can only get you to smile.... hehehe

Did the (10) do the damage?

Good Luck!

Ken

[paceman]

Great pictures and story....

[Hotspotter]

Ken:

Kelly thought it would be really funny to give me a decoy. So he sent a butterball down with Jon and leaned it up against a stick in my yard. I can hear the "frozen-foods-section" jokes already. You've got my back right?

Joel

[Scott M]

Good story Joel. Where will you be for "C" season? Congratulations Jonny.

[Nate McVey]

Great story Joel and congrats Johnny P!

[IceHawk]

Nice bird and story congratulations to both of you on a successfull hunt!

[Tyler Holm]

Awesome Bird. Nice teamwork Joel and JP

[LABS4ME]

I got your back... but I fear I'm not going to be enough back-up... 2 Petrowskes easily can keep 3-4 guys protecting each other with their practical jokes...!

Good Luck!

Ken

[muc33]

Nice pics, great rundown and Jonny I really like that one pic where you are smiling.

[sticknstring]

Awesome work guys - That's a stud bird!

 Quote:

Keeping him from shooting varmints also proved difficult.

You two weren't striker fighting in the blind were ya? Looks as if Joel got the short end of the stick...

[MJCatfish]

Great story line, pictures, and very nice bird. Love the limbhanger shots.

MJ

[Greybeard53]

Awesome bird! Congrats Johnny.

You definitely got your $3 worth out of that shotgun shell.

[Powerstroke]

$3...he was shooting the 10 gauge!!No wonder he's not smiling.

Congrats Jonny. What a pig of a bird! Greta pics too. I like the standing pick with the cape falling forward. Beautiful color on that one.

[Cooter]

Now thats a dandy! JP's first bird? Congrats. Nice shot of JN putting all that emotion into his calling!

[harvey lee]

Congrats on a great hunt and a very nice bird.

[Borch]

Man Joel!

Now you've gone and spoiled Jonny and I supposed he'll think it's just too easy! Just look at that smile!

Nice bird by the way Jonny!

[delzz7]

Way to go Johnny & Joel, thats a nice bird. Looks like the B mobile did its job too

[Tim_Anderson]

I enjoyed the story. Congrats! Is Johnny hooked on turkey hunting now?

Now I'm chompin' at the bit for my hunt!

[ChuckN]

I see a smirk on Jonny's face! Nice job and awesome bird! Enjoyed the stories of the hunt! LOL

[Random guy]

Ok I just got back from that god forsaken thorn infested, pheasant cawwing country. I swear that [PoorWordUsage] pheasant was following me around.

I have about fifteen fires I need to put out ASAP, once I get caught up tonight I will post the "real story" about this bog boy in the bluff country and the many scholdings I recieved that started off with "Turkeys can hear that!" or "Are you having a seizure?" and my favorite "What do you mean you don't have any shells?" along with my first turkey in the wild sighting right over my head in a high speed pitch dragging her knuckles over my head...ya I peed a little.

It will be a good little ditty, later.

[Random guy]

Finally caught up with all those chores that wait for you to come home after a vacation.

First off I have to give credit where credit is due. If was not for the efforts and mad turkey skills of Joel Nelson this successful hunt would have never happened. Now I was set on going turkey hunting for a long time, I watched the videos, practiced calling, read the articles and talked to everybody I could about turkeys. I felt I had somewhat of a basic knowledge of what to do…well I was sadly mistaken.

Now the adventure.

I arrived in turkey country the day before season and Joel was quick get me in the truck and to show me what his scouting had produced. We drove out and looked over the land we would be hunting and listened for the tell tale sounds of gobblers that never came. Joel’s birds disappeared, not silent just plain gone. I could see the unrest as the wheels started turning in his head. Next thing I know he has aerial photos out, journals from year of hunting and a close eye on the weather maps. He was picking out valleys, ridges windrows and just about every angle to where these birds may have jumped to all whith a phone to his ear getting permission from landowners whom I also would like to thank, wasn’t for those good ol boys letting us on their farm land may have been another outcome.

The morning came and we where picking away through brush comparable to my northern home. Finally we weaved our way into an area that absolutely came alive when the sun began to creep up on the distant roost trees. Those turkeys may have been a long ways off but I will never forget the sound of all the gobblers announcing their intentions from a mile long stretch of ridge…I think that was the last serenity of Joel’s hunt with Jonny P.

As we sat quietly waiting for these gobbler to work their way to my gun barrel I am all ears listening for those little peeps and clucks when my newest nemesis announced his presence. A rooster pheasant cut loose within close quarters with that god awful squawk that sent me into a small panic. Being from northern Minnesota I had no idea what that was and at that point I didn’t care to find out. Once Joel got done trying not to laugh out loud at the almighty bear guide hiding behind a tree so the pheasant doesn’t get him he began working on quieting me down only to have efforts thwarted by a kamikaze hen turkey. Now I knew turkeys “pitched” off the roost trees to lower valleys. I DID NOT know this means a quarter mile bomb run on my hat! Once again I am looking for cover as this hen sets about ten yards behind us. Now I turn around and look this thing has a beard? So now I am really confused. It has the color of a hen, makes hen sounds but has a beard? This was one of the first lessons given in whispers around a tree trunk. Ok know I know turkeys are gender confused…like downtown.

Well that morning was a learning curve as was the rest of the day and the evening hunt. I spooked birds I didn’t even know where in front of me, I spooked birds beside me, behind me and even one over a hundred yards away…ok turkeys can see. I figured the second day would be better, I should have had all of the jitters out of my system and had a feel for what should be going on.

Day two, shenanigans and monkey shines!

Poor ol Nelson thought he was going out with a hunting guide and this is what he dealt with;

We walk for miles and miles through the darkness and set up for the morning hunt to only be fooled by some Toms on a mission in the other direction, as we are packing up to head to another area my varmint sensor goes off and since I have a Minnesota varmint license I proceed to send some rounds off on a couple “varmints” well as the last few shells worked through the chamber I realize I am out of ammo. Yup left the extra ammo in the other pack…Joel was not impressed. “What do you mean you are out of bullets?!”

This lead into working our way back to the truck calling hear and their while making the trip back for ammo. Well we get a response out of a hen and gobbler that Joel figured he could call from across this he valley. Well he starts getting into an argument with this hen. Yes he is in a girl fight. I don’t know what he said but that bird was mad! She came down a huge a ridge across a valley and back up the large ridge we where sitting on only to loose the gobbler that was with some where along the way. Joel was a little frustrated about this but I reminded him I was out of bullets anyways…he didn’t even smile that time even though a was having a good time with it.

Once at the truck we notice three toms of in the distance. Well Joel grabs me and drags me to a cut off point and he starts calling. Well this goes on for what seemed like hours as we lay in the grass. Now while Joel is doing all the right things he hears my safety clicking. He naturaly is looking for the tom I am lining up on. You should have seen the look on his face when he realized I was smashing wood ticks in the breech safety when they would crawl off my hands. Naturally he was frustrated by this foolery. So I started whispering a story to settle him down that the end result was me cracking up so bad I just started laughing. “That is when I got “Turkeys can hear that!” I also learned what an alarm put was.

After all of this the hunt is still good as two more gobblers announce themselves at the top of the ridge. Well Nelson figures he might be able to call them down. Now remember we are sitting on the back side of grass hump in an open field and these birds are right above us. Not a good set up but it was the hand we where dealt so we ran with it. Well Joel did a great job, he did bring the toms down the ridge about twenty yards to my left even though I was helping with dirty talk. I figured I would use some open vocabulary with these birds. I called them names, I threatened them. I think I made reference to the one toms sexual preference. Even with my calling skills the bird still walked right behind the grass clump I couldn’t see around. Yup I had a strutting tom twenty yards away in an open field and I never seen it but Joel had to watch it walk away from his view point. I then got a talk about shenanigans while hunting turkeys.

After all of the messing around Joel still agreed to take me hunting. Well the results are in the pictures. I decided to behave and listen to what he had to say. I even agreed to pack a blind, decoys, my ten gauge and all the other gear down a creek bottom, up a ridge that I swear rivals Everest and I even tried to be quite and not tell any jokes. It was a killer set-up. Joel figures a big tom he seen earlier in the day was the same tom roosting on the ridge off in the distance so he set us in the most likely path and began calling. Now this was awesome. About fifteen minutes after his calling run I heard a light hen yelp. Joel butts into the conversation and convinces this Tom to ditch his hens with a jake present to come strut for the decoys. It was easy from that point. The bird was in my sites and was completely focused on Joel’s calling and the decoy. Of course Joel was focused on my barrel primed to blow a hole through his blind canvas. This started a whole new round of giggling and monkey shines! I was still able to pull off the shot, the old ten reared back and the tom dropped. It was text book perfect. Until I stepped on Joel’s custom striker.

[Nate McVey]

Holy [PoorWordUsage] Johnny! That was some of the funniest stuff I have ever read! I pictured all that in my head and it was as if I was there.....smashing ticks in your breach.....shooting varmints while sneaking.....hiking up "Everest" like ridges....thanks for sharing and for giving my IT guy another full day of work

Joel, you are a saint among men for getting Johnny a bird....."Turkey's can hear that" might be the funniest thing I have heard in awhile and I can picture you facil expression as you "yell" it through your teeth

[Scott M]

That was a great read right there. Well done. Sounds like a good hunt. Jonny, you might be the bumbling "Shrek" of the north my friend. Joel has the patience of Job and the right sense of humor I guess.

Congrats to both on a great hunt.