Today was my first day out for shotgun season in over 4 years. I hit up a private property over lunch this afternoon with a buddy from work. His friend owns it and lets us hunt it because he no longer lives in the place. The area is small - only about 15 acres. However, it's a heavily wooded area and it has almost no pressure because of the house being for sale with no residents in it or nearby.

Early on, the birds were responding to my buddy's slate calling. After about 25 minutes of calling to figure out a look angle, we setup on the wooded edge of this small field behind the house. We had a good luck getting responses on nearly every call and, as luck would have it, a real hen rolled up on our side of the field. This brought in two males; I couldn't tell if they were jakes or toms at this point, just that they were males. They closed the gap to the hen, but clearly started checking me out as I was not covered very well and my bald head was uncovered (forgot my hat in the car.)

I stayed dead still and small staredown later, they started to ignore me. Presumably, these birds thought our calls were from the hen near us and she was fairly close. These boys were unfortunately not going to get much closer than they already were and hung up at 61 lasered yards. That's pretty steep distance, but I had to go for it. One shot later and about an hour into the hunt...





I hardly got this one "by the book":

-Winchester Supreme O/U 12 GA...more of an upland game setup

-Plain old Mossy Oak shirt/Real Tree pattern pants from Wal-Mart

-El cheapo' Winchester 2 3/4" Super X (silver box) #4 turkey loads - again, the only stuff they had for turkey at Wally World in 2 3/4"

-Primos Box Cutter call

-Nikon Monarch ATB 12x bincos

-Leupold RX-1000 laser rangefinder

...no face cover, no ghillie suit, no 3.5" magnum loads, no pistol gripped semi-auto. Just a cobbled together mess of crap. But, hey - it worked. He's hardly a trophy bird - 2" beard, spurs are nubs, but he's mine and I'm happy with that.

Very nicely done!! A nice tender one!!

Congrats on a nice bird.

Well done !

Luis - outstanding!

One of the things I've learned through deer hunting is that its far more important to be there early instead of being hung-up on having the exact "right" gear, location, etc.

Your hunt reminds me that you can't shoot if you're not in the field! Well done!

I too went this last weekend; my wife's family has a farm outside of Martinsburg, and we chased turkeys all morning. Too windy, and the birds were skittish.

After a long stalk, we got to within about 60 or 70 yards of the birds, but I had only 2 3/4" pheasant #6's in a standard modified choke, so I waited to see if we could get closer.

Never happened, but that's why there's always tomorrow!

Congrats again -

friar

The absolute antithesis of Murphy's Law.

Congratulations !
Andy

Thanks a lot guys. I had been snake-bitten with turkeys for quite some time and, for once, it went easy. We just couldn't believe how fast the birds came to the field and got into gun range. Granted, the conditions for the shot were far from ideal, but the bottom line is that thid old boy went down. In the end, I guess that's all that matters. Now I'm itching to get back out there, of course.

Friar - that's one thing that sucks about our state - the danged wind! It's a universal game scare and always seems to come out on hunting days. Next time you get them in at about 60 yards with those #6s, take a crack if they won't close the gap. I had an improved modified, 2 3/4" shells with bigger shot/less density and it worked out. I hear a lot of guys are actually going to #6 for turkey because it offers up more pellets per load. You may very well tag one nicely, even with a really open choke.

FYI - I dropped the breasts in the smoker with a dry rub and boy, oh boy, did they turn out nicely! Applewood smoked with plain water in the pan, 2.5 hours at 210 degrees F.

Luis--Way to go. That is a nice bird.

quote:

Originally posted by sharpsguy:
Luis--Way to go. That is a nice bird.

Thanks, Bill. Took me long enough, but hey, that's what makes it worth the wait.