A buddy and I hiked out to a new spot Sunday midday and after setting up camp we headed to a nice ridge overlooking some good turkey country. Glassed up a lot of birds and were able to get a good feel for their preferred walking routes but unfortunately they didn’t cooperate with their roost sites. Game plan for the morning was to split up and sit up the hill on different sections of their “path” and hopefully lure one to us.
This morning was very quiet except for the occasional distant gobble. Around 10 am I struck up a random gobble a few hundred yards away. About 15 minutes later I saw him cruising up the hill towards me but he went up the wrong finger and we were separated by a ravine about 150 yards away that he had no interest in crossing apparently. I lost sight of him and eventually figured he was going to resume his route and hopefully head towards my buddy. About 20 minutes later he starts gobbling his head off at the base of my little hill. He was fired up (double/triple gobbling calls) and seemed to be pacing back and forth trying to figure out how he was going to get up to me. Within a few minutes his gobbles are definitely closer and I raised my gun. Eventually I spot his red head through the bushes and some reassuring clucks/purrs brought him right in for an easy 34 yard shot. Didn’t realize how big he was until I got up to him...definitely my biggest bird (just over 10” beard and 1 1/4” spurs).
Great season...typically my goal is to hopefully shoot one bird a year to call it “successful”. Shooting 3 and hitting my season limit is very cool, especially with a bird like this!
This morning was very quiet except for the occasional distant gobble. Around 10 am I struck up a random gobble a few hundred yards away. About 15 minutes later I saw him cruising up the hill towards me but he went up the wrong finger and we were separated by a ravine about 150 yards away that he had no interest in crossing apparently. I lost sight of him and eventually figured he was going to resume his route and hopefully head towards my buddy. About 20 minutes later he starts gobbling his head off at the base of my little hill. He was fired up (double/triple gobbling calls) and seemed to be pacing back and forth trying to figure out how he was going to get up to me. Within a few minutes his gobbles are definitely closer and I raised my gun. Eventually I spot his red head through the bushes and some reassuring clucks/purrs brought him right in for an easy 34 yard shot. Didn’t realize how big he was until I got up to him...definitely my biggest bird (just over 10” beard and 1 1/4” spurs).
Great season...typically my goal is to hopefully shoot one bird a year to call it “successful”. Shooting 3 and hitting my season limit is very cool, especially with a bird like this!
