Air Force 1

[FullChoke]

I know that everyone here is an experienced longbeard killer. But there was that one moment in time when you went from 0 to 1 in the gobbler department. I'm talking about your first bird. The culprit who took one for the team and started an avalanche of his flopping brothers that continues to now. It must have been an amazing experience to have hooked you so deeply.

Tell us about that first gobbler that started all this mania in your life.   

Cheers 

FullChoke

[FullChoke]

It started raining on the way to the area that I wanted to hunt that morning, but I had read in a great book by Col. Dave Harbour that turkeys would still gobble in the rain, so I just kept walking. Just as I was about to crest a ridge, He hammered on the roost out in the middle of a clearcut on the other side of the ridge. I slipped up to a log loading clearing, eased behind a treetop on the edge of it and called occasionally on the Lynch's Fool-Proof box call like the instructions with the call told me to. After the rain finally stopped, I watched him sail off the roost and land off to my left. He came out to the road down the way and demanded that the hen that he had been fantasizing about all morning stop everything and get her feathers down there to him. I just kept clucking and lightly yelping because I didn't know what else to do. After about 45 minutes, he and a jake come stomping into the log loading area where I was. I had to carefully put the call down, get my hands on the gun and wait for the right moment to get the gun up. He walked over in front of me at a distance of about 30 yards and faced straight away stretching his neck to try and find that pesky hen. I moved right then, got the bead on him and shot. I went scrambling over slick, wet logs and limbs and stood over him with the gun pointed at him. When the realization finally washed over me that he was NOT GETTING UP, I stood out there on that crisp Mississippi morning with the bright morning sun breaking through the departing clouds and hollered for 5 straight minutes at the top of my lungs! To say that I was hooked right then and there was a complete understatement.

The next most fantastic moment that morning came when I got back to my grandfather's house and caught up with him on his way out to pick strawberries in the garden. I acted dejected as I schlepped up to him. "All right boy, Come tell me your tale of woe." I walked right up to him with my head hanging down, cut my eyes up to him and simply said, "16 pounds, 4 ounces". There was a flash of confusion that came over his face, which gave way to a blast of surprise. He threw the bucket he was carrying straight up in the air and took off on a dead run back to the front porch, easily beating me there. We hollered and danced around with each other like 2 happy idiots. My grandfather was my hunting mentor, teaching me good ethics, woodsmanship and how to love the outdoor world. I really believe that he was almost as thrilled about this bird as I was. I miss him terribly still to this day.

FullChoke

[TKE921]

Here is a little copy-and-paste from 2020

In 2011 I killed my first solo bird.  It had rained all morning so the FIL (Father-In-Law) and I drove back across the mountain to his house to go in.  Little did we know it was not raining at all there.  He decided to go in and take a nap anyway but her mom informed me that a gobbler had been hammering all morning on the farm behind the house, so off I went.

I went to our favorite spot on the farm and called for quite a while and heard absolutely nothing.  I picked up my things and began to walk around the back side of a ridge and field calling.  When i got to the highest point I heard a bird probably 500 yards across the big hollow to my right and around the hill in a field on a neighboring farm.

I quickly made my way toward him, calling about every hundred yards or so.  He answered every call I made, and was closing the distance himself.  I had never been to this part of the farm and had never chosen a setup without my FIL so I was in very uncharted waters.  I picked my spot, got my gun on my knee and proceeded to try my best to make my WP-1 mouth call sound more like a turkey than a goose.  The gobbler apparently had a thing for hens with strange voices because he ate it up.

Within 5 min he was just up the hill from me, gobbling his head off but walking back and forth.  I later learned there is an old fence up there.  It is open on both ends and he could have easily went around it....but then it wouldn't be turkey hunting would it.

After about 10-15 min of him gobbling at me through the fence mother nature decided it was time for player 3 to enter the game and the gobbler and I were now faced with a full on thunderstorm.  The wind blew, the rain poured, the thunder cracked and he gobbled at everything (including my calling).  I sat there soaked, freezing, with rain running off my hat bill like a faucet but still hopeful because he was gobbling.

After a while of this the first bolt of lightning came and I decided my 11-87 was not meant to be a lightning rod so I ran back to the house, dejected.  Upon arrival I found my FIL fast asleep on the couch and knew better than to wake him without a dead bird to show for it, so I put my camo in the dryer.  Within 30 min my clothes were dry, the sun was beaming, and he was still snoring.  When i was folding my clothes, still dejected, I realized I had lost a glove in my scramble to not get fried.  Since the FIL was still sleeping I grabbed my gun, camo, and just my one mouth call and headed out.  The time was 11:30.

I retraced my steps and found my glove within 3 feet of where I had been sitting, so I took this as a sign and sat right back down.  Upon making the first call I realized signs are for roads and public buildings because my gobbler answered about 150yds out the hill from where I had left him.  I was admittedly very excited about this because I had been over there a couple times and knew some places to set up.

I got to the base of a big oak tree I had sat against a few times and let out the first yelpish sounding call and was greeted with a response that was further out the hill than the previous response.  I was undeterred, mostly because ignorance is truly bliss sometimes.  I let out a few more calls and even tried my best to make a cluck.  He responded at my duck-cluck and I believe he was facing my way this time.  Several more calls produced absolutely no response so I decided I hated that turkey and he had realized I was a fake and left.  I then began to contemplate the events of earlier and how that gobbler had heard tons of my calling but did not seem to care I sounded more like a Hooded Merganser than a hen turkey.   Not long into my deep contemplation I noticed a white head bobbing around and coming toward me about 15 yards lower on the hill than I was.  I pulled every fiber of my being together to stop the shaking and to manage a quiet duck-cluck to get him to stop.  I have no clue if I ever stopped shaking or if my duck-cluck was quiet but he did stop and my aim was true.

[3bailey3]

It was a late April day, that morning is was 32 degrees, i didn't heard much that morning but i heard my buddy shoot, when we came out my buddies bird was a huge 4 bearded bird with a 1 and a 1/4 spurs. My buddy and another friend were going to carry his bird to the Primos king of the spring contest, in which i think he came in second place, they only would score the longest beard in the contest. I was down thinking i would go another season without a bird, my buddies told me to go try a big field on our lease, when i got there there was a gobbler strutting with two hens. The wind had gotten up to 20 miles a hour and gusting, so i was able to move around and get set up without getting  busted. I pulled out my Primos spring hen push/pull and start calling loud because of the wind and i saw him gobble but i couldn't hear it, i watched them start coming my way but they were across the field. They got even with me and i watched him strutting for the hens for about 30 minute's, then the hens started coming towards me but dropped out of sight because of a swell in the field. I was beginning to think they had got by me but a hen popped up at 30 yards and walk by. I was thinking where did the gobbler go so i got up on my knees to look down in the swell to try and see him and he pops out at 30 yards, on my knees with the gun down no way right. I slowly rise my gun and take the shot and he is down. I couldn't believe i had done it! When i walked up to him he had a double beard and a little over inch spurs. I was smiling on the long walk back to camp. When i get there my buddies are just now pulling back up to the camp, so glad because i didn't know what to do with the bird, ha. That was a long time ago but i still remember it like it was yesterday!