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How about some sophiticated reading for our resident scholars?

I posted this before. The turkey on the carryall knew king fu, judo, karate and how to come back from the dead. After I shot him I stood on his neck which is a normally accepted way to make sure the bird is dead. As with most birds even after being decapitated nerves will cause them to kick and flap wings.  While standing on his neck I reached down grabbed his legs and gave a quick tank to make sure his neck was broke. Here is the rest of the account.
Boys it all happened so fast that I was bleeding before I could drop him. Since he was dead I reached down and grabbed him by one leg. I walked about 50 yards carrying him by one leg. He took exception to the fact that I assumed he was dead. He started flogging me and kicking me with the free leg. I couldn't seem to let him go. I started spinning around while holding him out to keep him away from me. He insisted on kicking and flogging to the bitter end.
While I was spinning his wings caught air and when I felt him pulling away I was able to let go. When he hit the ground he gathered his wits. He then launched a full fledged assault.  I had dropped my shotgun in the maylay. It was hand to wing combat and he had a couple of daggers on his legs. He came running and I responded with a kick that sent him rolling. With the next assault he came running and in about the last 15 feet he took flight so I put my arms over my face to block the impact. I  was able to sling him off which only brought a few seconds of relief.  Here he came again. I couldn't get a good grip on him due to the fact he was beating the fire out of me with his wings. Everytime he got his toes near me he would scratch me like a rabid tiger. I finally got lucky and knocked him to the ground.  I was able to step on his neck and finished him once and for all.
The whole episode probably only lasted for two minutes but seemed like hours. When I got him to the scout I dug up some straps and strapped him down on the carryall. That way if he revived again and starting fighting it would be outside where he couldn't get to me. Never trust a dead turkey.
Oh and the first thing I thought once it got over with was I hope no one saw it happen.

(https://i.imgur.com/LP7vs7J.jpg)

I think about this every year before season opens. I have posted it before. Hope you enjoy it.

I know some of you have read this and a couple of you probably remember the story when this bird was killed. With season coming I thought you might enjoy this.

The legend of the Patterson bird: First off I know that several members here are already familiar with this story. Myth or monster?

In the 70's we had very few turkeys in Lincoln Co Tn. Sometime in 1977 or 1978 TWRA released a bunch of birds here. While it took a while for them to really take root they eventually did. A farmer in the north west end of the county lived one farm over from one of the release sites. He began reading everything he could find about the wild turkey and soon after sacrificed one of his hay fields for a turkey plot. He planted chicory and chufa as well as brown top millet. before long he had the entire north end release staying on his farm. He was the first real turkey hunter I know of in Lincoln Co. During this time he had a son that was raised watching the birds. When he reached the ripe old age of 8 years old he decided he wanted to hunt a turkey. His father sawed the stock off of a old single shot 20ga so that it would fit him. He rounded up some #6 high brass ammo and off to the turkey fields they went. The father began to call on a box call and soon had several birds headed in his direction. He said as soon as I saw the gobbler I realized that he was huge. The son never broke nervous and when the bird was about 25 yards in front of him he made a good shot dropping the turkey in its tracks.

Upon retrieving the bird the father told his son you will never top this bird. They loaded it up to check it in at the Delina store. While there the store owner also amazed at the size of the bird wanted to weigh it on their scales. For anyone that doesn't know meat scales have to be certified accurate by the dept of agriculture. They weighed the bird, measured the beard at 14 1/2". The bird weighed 30.0lbs. The spurs were 2 1/2 and 2 5/8. In other words 110.25 bird.

Now true or false? I first heard about the bird in 1984 and found out that the father of the boy that killed it worked less than a mile from where I worked. Obviously I had to ask him about the bird. He retrieved a picture of a young boy holding the bird up by its legs over his head and the head was on the ground enough for the neck to bend. You could see that the beard was huge. I asked him what happened to the bird and his first reply was "we ate it". Soooooo I asked about the spurs and beard. He lit up when he realized I was genuinely interested in the bird and told me that he dried the legs spurs attached and fixed the beard with a shot gun shell cap. He didn't have it with him but said he would be glad to show it to me.

I had nearly given up hope on it when he came in the front door where I work and said sorry it took so long but here they are. I nearly passed out. The spurs were not an exaggeration. The beard was as advertised. No way to verify the weight however except the bird was weighed on a certified scale but the store had burned down and the people that ran it had moved away.

I ran into the father last year and immediately recognized him although we both have aged a bit since then. I was saddened to learn that he hardly turkey hunts now. I had to ask about the spurs because I wanted to take a picture of them. To my surprise he said that after his son grew up and moved out he really didn't know what happened to the spurs and beard. It seems odd that about 25 years later the number one a-typical bird in the state and number 11 all time was killed less than 5 miles from where a 8 year old kid on a breezy spring day killed one of the greatest turkeys that ever lived.

Great stories, reflexl!  If I wasn't so gullible, I would say the first one might be a slight fabrication, but I know that nobody on The GOATS would ever do that so I will assume it is the truth with little or no embellishment...   ;D :angel9:

Quote from: GobbleNut on March 04, 2022, 02:46:54 PM
Great stories, reflexl!  If I wasn't so gullible, I would say the first one might be a slight fabrication, but I know that nobody on The GOATS would ever do that so I will assume it is the truth with little or no embellishment...   ;D :angel9:

That one is actually true. I got my butt handed to me by a dead turkey. He just wasn't as dead as I thought he was.

Many years ago I had a fellow I worked for ask if I would take him turkey hunting. He had overhead us talking about turkeys and he though it would be something he would enjoy. Anyways this fellow wasn't a stranger to hunting but he also wasn't exactly what I would call a seasoned hunter plus he smoked about two packs of cigarettes a day.
Anyways daylight found us at one of my listening spots on a ridge where we could hear and see for quite a distance to the East. As luck would have it we heard several gobblers tearing it up to our west up on top of the ridge behind us. After a few minutes if listening and nothing happening on our ridge I told him "let's go"
His eyes got big and he asked "up there?"
"Yup" was all I said as I started towards the base of the next ridge. Well my fellow followed along and we started on our ascent. Now this ridge wasn't particularly bad. It is probably about a 50 or 55 degree angle up for about 250 or 300 yards but about 75 yards into it I can see my guy is having a hard time with it. I notice He doesnt have a sling for his shotgun so I switch him and tell him to use mine as I trust it more anyways. He swaps me and I pull a Gatorade out of the back of my vest which I had brought for him. He almost chugs the thing before handing it back and we continued on. I will give the man credit. He powered on and we finally made it to the top albeit a lot slower than I was hoping. Anyways once at the top I was listening and trying to locate the gobblers again while my buddy got his breath and finished his Gatorade. They were still gobbling however they had flown down and were moving away from us. At that moment they were a good 400 yards out the ridge so I knew we needed to make up some time. I hissed at my buddy we needed to go and off we went on a long loop around the right side, flanking them and trying to get in front. My buddy did his best to keep up, he was crashing and thrashing around and when we hit a thicket he sounded like a tank crashing through. The turkeys kept moving though and my buddy was running out of steam. We made one last attempt at a loop and wound up about 150 yards behind them when I crow called to check them. My buddy was wooped, doubled over with sweat streaming down his face and gasping for air. He chugged my Gatorade,lit a cigarette and declared "I am done, if you can't call those SOB's up here then the heck with them". So I figured it was worth a shot. Setting him up against a big oak i pointed out where I thought they would more likely come into view and dropped back about 20 yards to call. They fired up immediately and started our way. I knew there were at least two and that made me feel better about our odds. Not 10 minutes later I could hear drumming and they popped into view about 50 yards out and headed straight at us. It was perfect, they were closing fairly quick, popping in and out of strut and one even gobbled again. Once they were at 30 yards I clucked on my mouth call and all three stopped and stretched their necks out. I was just waiting for the shot as the tom on the left was well clear for a shot. Nothing happened. My buddy is sitting there with my  gun on his knee and i can practically see down the barrel at the turkeys. I figured he must want them closed and thats exactly what happened. At about 20 yards one separated again so I clicked on the call and they all stopped, looking and bobbing their heads. Shoot! Was all I could hiss at my buddy. Still nothing. One of the gobblers started coming even closer, finally he was at about 10 steps in front of my buddy's gun barrel and it was about that time I noticed it starting to twitch a bit. The turkey noticed it too and started alarm putting and all three started high stepping away. Knowing it was about to be over I hiss a louder "SHOOT!". Nothing again but the gun is moving a lot now.  Turkeys start moving at a higher speed as he racks the shotgun, throwing out a shell and loading another. One of the turkeys stopped at about 40 yards but my buddy decided not to try him and they were all out of sight pretty quickly.
My buddy just slumped against the tree saying some things I won't repeat here. I was laid back against my tree trying not to laugh too hard but man was it hard. Once we got to checking things out it was apparent what happened. Somehow when my buddy was moving through the woods he managed to hit the slide release on my gun and the action got slid back a touch. Every time I stopped the turkeys he was squeezing the trigger to no effect as the action wasn't in the locked position. All he needed to do was slide the pump forward and it all would have worked. On the last attempt he was squeezing the trigger so hard the barrel was wobbling and that is what did us in. I would love to have a still shot of that moment.
Anyways, the whole way back to the truck all I hear is #@%&@ turkeys and $#@%&^ hunting, along with i can't feel my legs anymore, I can't breath, go bring the truck around for me.
We got him a turkey later but for some odd reason he says he is never going on a turkey hunt in my stomping grounds again.

I posted several of my best hunt stories in this thread

http://oldgobbler.com/Forum/index.php/topic,100082.msg989823.html#msg989823

Happy got to love it!

A man that lives in our county that is known for telling tall tales told of turkey hunting in a deep gorge along the river. He saw a place on the other side of the river he wanted to hunt but could not figure out how to get across. About that time a huge gobbler flew over and he grabbed his fan and road him across to the other side.

Knew an old outlaw named Elmer that used to poach turkeys by catching them alive in a trap so he could release them if he was on the way to the house and ran into a game warden.  Well, one day he caught a live one and was taking him home when a warden came around the corner and caught him red handed. 

The warden saw the turkey under old Elmer's arm and said,.."Son, what you gonna do with that there gobbler?" 

Old Elmer stuttered for a minute thinking of something to say, but the warden said,..."I'll help you out there pardner.  Let me tell you what I am gonna do.  I am gonna do to you whatever it is that you think you are gonna do to that turkey.  If you are plannin' on ringin' his neck, that is what I'm gonna do to you.  If your gonna pluck him and throw him in the oven, well, that's what your gonna get.  If you are gonna..."

Right at that moment, Elmer interrupted the warden and said with a big smile,..."Mr. warden, sir, I done figured out what I am gonna do with this here gobbler.  I am gonna kiss his a-- and let him go."   ;D :angel9:

Quote from: eggshell on March 06, 2022, 12:35:19 PM
I posted several of my best hunt stories in this thread

http://oldgobbler.com/Forum/index.php/topic,100082.msg989823.html#msg989823

Yep I have read most of those. Good stuff!

The turkey with 3.5 lives and the 6 minute bird


The year was 2016 and was time for an annual wounded warrior hunt that a NWTF chapter in NY puts on. Several friends are members of the chapter and since I always have a NY license I have often driven up to assist with the event, especially when they have a larger turnout of hunters. My Hunter was a 73yr old war vet named Ed who is a continual chimney of cigar smoke, given my usual propensity for walking the mountains I was assigned a sweet River bottom property we called the Island, its a 7 acres patch of trees surrounded by 100's of ag fields tight to the Hudson River. The birds always seemed to roost in one pocket on the north end and before they see much hunting pressure its not uncommon for there to be 3-5+ mature toms roosted together in that pocket each morning. The Farmer typically asked hunters to stay out until after the Vet Hunt but either the turkeys hade wandered as they sometime do or someone had been in there prior because there was nary a hen home. We probed several more areas of the farm and didn't turn up a feather. The nearest other property I had access to I had never turkey hunted but it was flat walking so we headed that way. We slide behind the barn and glassed a few pastures, let out a few calls and made our way toward a block of timber that sits across a set of railroad tracks, so we climb the bank to cross the tracks and what is walking out of the woods on the other side but a Gobbler. We lock eyes and he sails down the tracks and into a creek bottom on a neighboring property. We made a small loop and started back to the truck to check the other side of the road where the farm continues when the spooked bird starts gobbling working back our way. We set up in hedge row and start working the birds, to my surprise he wasn't hesitant at all after being spooked and was closing fast gobbling with every step. He popped out into the pasture just outside of gun range in strut just as the familiar sound of an ATV approaching grew louder. The farmers son was out doing chores and the bird folded up and sprinted 250yds back across the pasture onto the neighbors. We decided to just wait since he settled so quickly the first time and it wasn't 10min before he was out on the edge of the field strutting again. Again we went to work calling and he starts to work back in, this is when I realized Ed's 28" barrel 3.5in 12GA is tad heavy for him, he would raise the gun, wave the barrel in a figure 8 trying to hold steady and lay it back in his lap creating a lot of unnecessary movement with the bird closing distance. The bird went behind some brush at a small water run off ditch and I whisper to have his gun up and ready when he gets to our side. The bird pops out at 19yds and freezes, glancing at Ed I can see he has the gun in his lap again, sure enough the bird putts and run back across the ditch. I cut hard as the bird waddles off and to surprise he screeches to a halt and gobbles, having been through the ringer already I gobbled back on a mouth call and he spins while producing one of the loudest spits I've heard and comes charging back half strut, I hiss to Ed to get his gun on his knee and leave it there and this time when the bird crossed the ditch he touched off. But that heavy barrel was still trying to drop down more than it should and the bird rolled in a cloud of feathers and got his feet after an obvious body shot. The bird was back in the ditched without a possible second shot opportunity so I took off, somehow navigating a barbed wire fence at full speed (gracefully I might add) and caught up to the bird just as he was crawling into a patch of greenbrier. I tried to tackle the bird and get his wings under him but all I came up with was a single leg, the bird is kicking me with with his other leg and beating the snot out of me with his wings, I decide to go for the end that doesn't possess slightly longer than 1in spurs and get him by the neck but I loose my balance and we both tumble through some chinese barberry into the greenbrier, the tussle continues  :newmascot:. But I come out the victor (I add again gracefully)  :turkey2: after nearly half plucking the poor bird. I stand up expecting to find Ed right there, surely he's come for reinforcements. Ed is back at the tree, legs crossed chuckling and lighting a fresh cigar.   

He barely looks up from his cigar before he saying, "son I don't want to add insult to injury but you tore your britches getting through that barbed wire"

I think quipped back with something along the lines of "I'm not used to all this, you see I shoot my turkeys in the head" to which he replies "I learned to shoot center mass and you're gonna have to deal with that" 

We've been friends ever since, but the story is not over.

I took Ed to his motel so he could shower and change before our big post hunt cookout. It's 11:30 and NY hunting is over at Noon. I say "hey I'll be back at 12 there another place I have hunted deer just down the road, I'm going to go see if one will gobble down there."
Til I drove down, park, grab 3 shells and 2 calls the minutes are ticking by, I took 1 step into the woods and hit a longbox, immediately and shockingly a bird gobbles towards the back of the property. I look at my Phone 11:50 and I take off running to cut the distance. After 250yds I stop and call and he triple gobbles and I can tell he's cutting distance as well, I scramble up the trail another 50yds and slide to the base of a cedar tree. Tossing the box call and my phone aside I made a few clucks on a scratch box and scuff the leaves with my foot, A gobble thunders through the timbers just as he steps out behind a stone wall and onto the logging road a mere 70yds away, speed walking straight at me, feathers glistening in the bright midday sun. I Let him have it the second he was in my comfort zone and immediately looked at my phone, 11:56am. 6min from first gobble and combined we closed 4-500 yds to make one of my quickest hunts to date.

The look on Eds face when he emerged from his motel room and I drop the tailgate to show that our bird count had grown from 1 to 2, his unlit cigar hanging from his mouth hit the sidewalk.

"How the He!! did you pull that off", "I didn't have you with spooking the thing every 20min"

Some days you just find birds that seemingly want to die, that is right up until they don't  :OGturkeyhead:

Adding pics so we know at least parts are true (https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20220312/3a7d84503b2b758bca36e8eb5effc742.jpg)(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20220312/8f6d61ff1aad4c904ae5543afd2dfc96.jpg)(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20220312/896e216b284b232cf834ff1f13bb28d5.jpg)

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Gotta love those old timers. They are fun to hang around just for the dialog alone.

Quote from: Happy on March 12, 2022, 11:27:41 AM
Gotta love those old timers. They are fun to hang around just for the dialog alone.

Happy, I predict some fun dialog in your future.... After all you are on a team of old G.O.A.T.S.

Flood come through last year and killed a bunch of folks but when one of my buddy's was cleaning out the creek he found all this metal coming out of the bank. He asked the old woman that lived there about it and she said when she was a girl her daddy and uncle kept a bear in there for the dogs, that it was a bear pen. So we get to talking about how so many places here in the mountains are called things like Bear Pen and Turkey Pen, etc. He gets to telling me something his grandfather told him about how they'd trap wild turkeys. He said they'd dig a ditch maybe fifty yards long and at the end they'd dig a big pit out not real deep but square and even. Over top of that ditch they'd lay some fencing and stake it down. He said they'd sprinkle a line of corn up that ditch and then put a good bit in the pen. Said the turkeys would come up through there heads down just a pecking. They'd feed into that pen and when the corn was all gone they'd lift their heads and they'd pop up through that fencing. Said once their heads come up through them gaps they never could figure out how to get them back down. On them weeks, the family eat.


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I am betting your right Dana. I remember I was helping an old farmer with some machine repairs one day and it just wasn't going well. He sighed and said "This is gonna be damned near impossible" of course I had to be a smart aleck and say " haven't you heard? Nowadays nothing is impossible". He looked at me quizzically and said "oh yeah? if thats the case I wanna see you stretch a gnats @$$ over a 55 gallon drum".

I may have shared this last year but here is a funny one involving my landowner buddy.  It was our first hunt together and I was still feeling out the property as I hadn't set foot on it in 10 years. At daylight nothing seemed to be roosted on his property, we did hear a few way off on a neighboring property but they sounded like they had hens and were drifting away from us. We started slowly moving and seeing what we could find. We finally hit a ridge that just felt turkey and I sat him down and picked a tree a few feet away. After things calmed down a bit I let loose with some cutting and a tom cut me off in the bottom about 150 yards out. A few minutes later my buddy hissed "turkey". I then saw it trotting towards us on the side of the ridge. He was still on the neighboring property and I was watching and telling my buddy when to shift his gun to cover the incoming turkey. Another turkey popped into view and was following about 15 yards behind. I had my buddy ready and the turkeys needed to come about 20 yards to be on our side of the property line. I  was looking them over pretty good and quickly noticed that they were both jakes. I no sooner got the words whispered " how do you feel about killing a jake?" when a gun roared and the lead jake was flopping. It took a second for me to realize what happened but as soon as I did I started chuckling. We walked over to congratulate the fellow and here is what happened.The neighboring landowner and his buddy had heard the same gobbling we had heard and decided to sit in the corner and hope that they would drift his way. He wasn't calling much. as he didn't have much confidence in his abilities. In his words" I was just sitting here hoping they would come through on this ridge when I heard a hen turkey cutting loose and a gobble to my hard right. I swung around and saw these two jakes running up the hill towards me. I was thinking I wouldn't shoot a jake today but its been three years since I killed a turkey so I let him have it." It was then that his buddy elbowed me and whispered"he told me this morning I was gonna get the first shot today." I had to chuckle. Anyways we visited for a few, congratulated him and went our separate ways. After we got away from them I circled around to get a little closer to the bottom. I explained that I was fairly certain that the gobble we had heard wasn't a jake. About 45 minutes later I got that gobbler fired up and he came in on a string just to have my buddy loose it and flat out miss him. It was an interesting day.

It is finally time to tell the story since I am pretty sure I won't face prosecution. As many of you that know me are aware, I had a rough year last year. Starting before turkey season I started battling cellulitis. I had numerous bouts with it that meant many rounds of antibiotics. This went on all year long.

    One of the side effects of large doses of antibiotics is severe diarrhea. I am talking nuclear diarrhea. They even tested me for c-diff but I didn't have it. Part of the process was to take probiotics to combat the effects of the antibiotics. They came with their own side effects.  Not that any diarrhea smells good but taking the probiotics took the smell to a whole new level. I have used the bathroom in Wal-Mart and as the odor circulated in the confined space I saw the grout began to crack and fall out of the tile. Once it hit me in Wal-Mart and I rushed to the bathroom. I barely made it to an open stall and set down to do my sinister business. It was basically a small explosion. The smell was incredible. The poor guy in the next stall began gagging and between the fumes burning my eyes and trying not to laugh at the poor guys olfactory distress I was in a mess. I wasn't about to leave before he did for fear of being identified.

    All of this brings us to a deer hunt. It started like any other deer hunt. Got up and  got ready and headed to the woods. I had already made a bathroom trip before I left the house.  I thought I was good. I made it to the farm and pulled into my parking spot. It was at this time that I realized I was in trouble. I bailed out of the rodeo and grabbed a roll of shop towels. I only made it about 20' before I had to stop and drop. Kind of funny what goes through your mind at a time like this but the first thing that hit my mind was trying to remember what I ate for supper. Terror struct as I realized that I got home really late and with my wife already in bed I ate a bowl of instant fiery pork ramen noodles and a can of smoke flavored vienna sausages and washed it down with a  mocha flavored energy drink. I knew bad things were coming. When the flood gates opened there was a cardinal setting on a limb about 20' from me that fell to the ground dead. Thankfully the wind was blowing away from the blind I was going to hunt out of.

    Across the river from me another hunter was already in his tree stand approximately 100 yards from this heinous pile on the ground. There was a breeze blowing directly towards him. You would have thought at that distance the odor of this abomination would have dispersed but not so. In about a minute I heard the poor guy gagging then violently vomiting. I was an emotional wreck. Torn between guilt and pity and the uncontrollable urge to horse laugh. I was at least able to stand upwind of the incredible stench but the poor guy up the tree was trapped and had just tossed his cookies.
   I continued to listen to make sure he didn't swallow his tongue. As I listened I realized he was attempting to climb down the tree while vomiting violently. All of the sudden I heard a crash. In his attempt to reach the safety of the ground, he arrived much faster than he intended to. I heard him talking on his phone so I figured he was OK so I headed for my blind. I had been set up for about 10 minutes when I heard the sound of an ambulance. At this point I was trying to figure out what my legal obligation was going to be. Although I didn't kill a deer that morning at least I didn't get arrested and I did have a hunting story that would stand the test of time.

 :TooFunny: :TooFunny: :TooFunny: :TooFunny:  Now that was just plain funny, reflexl!  LOL
However, I'm not too sure you are out of the woods just yet.  I'm not sure there is a statute of limitations on attempted murder.... and it sounds like you might be on the hook in multiple cases  ;D :D

Hmmm, so it seems that Old G.O.A.T.S. have a lot of stories that involve eating or bathroom issues....sounds about par

Hard to get happy after that one,
probably skip breakfast today

You fellows aren't making me look forward to my "Golden years."

Quote from: Happy on March 23, 2022, 11:57:57 AM
You fellows aren't making me look forward to my "Golden years."

Look on the bright side, you make not make it that long.

Quote from: reflexl on March 23, 2022, 12:48:05 PM

Quote from: Happy on March 23, 2022, 11:57:57 AM
You fellows aren't making me look forward to my "Golden years."

Look on the bright side, you make not make it that long.