I finally got out today after missing my first bird in almost twenty years last week. Before the season, I set up the nephews 20 gauge 870 with a Knoxx stock & power pack, a 20" pipe and .570 Jelly Head and a TruGlo red dot on a saddle mount. I super cleaned and polished the barrel before I even put the thing together. Shooting Heavy Shot 3'/1.25/#6's, it puts up killing patterns to 40 yards plus and devastating patterns inside 30. He hasn't even been out yet so I took it on it's maiden hunt today. It rained last night and I was set up and in the pop up blind by 5:00am on a grassy easement between a hard woods hill side and a grape vineyard where I have been seeing 3 gobblers and a half dozen jakes and 7 or 8 hens milling around for the last three days. At 6:00 am they started talking and didn't stop until 8:00am. The gobblers were in two distinct roosting groups, one on the hardwoods hillside about 400 yards to my left and the jakes about 450 yards to my right on the edge of the vineyard. The hens have been roosting/nesting on the hillside in an old clear cut now grown up with wild grape vines...VERY THICK STUFF! The only birds that moved were the hens as they fed and talked to each other up and down the grapes. Interesting conversation those birds had! :grin: The jakes never moved from their fly down spot, but around 6:30, I noticed the gobblers on the ridge were getting closer as they angled down the hill toward the vineyards and the hens. I matched the hens call for call, trying to keep them close and interested, but they just shut up when they heard the gobblers coming. For 25 minutes the gobblers hung up on the hill side gobbling every minute or so. Apparently they wanted the hens to come to them. :kiss: :wave: I was on posted, private property with exclusive hunting rights, so I gave a sharp cackle backed up with a good shake on the gobble shaker and got an instant reply, this time much closer to the edge of the woods. I readied my shotgun and peered out of the blind window, looking for the bird that should come down the grape rows to meet his honeys but didn't see a thing. Then, at 7:10 and about 10 yards from the closed up side of the blind, I heard the FFFTOOOOM of a strutting gobbler, and then a thundering gobble, and there wasn't a thing I could do as he would have surely seen any attempt to nudge a window on that side open for a peek and shot. As I sat there feverishly trying to think of what to do next, (maybe open a window on the opposite side and hope he just goes by and I got a back-o-da-noggin shot), I caught a flash of color out of the window facing into the rows. It was a gobbler with a clearly visible beard, trying to sneak past his "buddy" to get to the hens down in the vineyard. He stopped and pulled into full strut at my soft clucks...right behind a grape post. The gobbler next to my blind about deafened me again with another thundering gobble. I waited silently for the bird in the rows to drop out of strut and when he did, he stepped into the opening where my shotgun barrel was already trained. I clucked once and he stretched out his neck to see the hen that should be there and was slammed down to the ground with a load of heavy shot. The other bird shock gobbled and then putted as he turned tail for the hill side. The range was 37 yards lasered back to the blind and the bird had 8 pellets in his head and neck and about 13 pellets in his upper body/crop/breast. The 2 bbs in the breast passed all the way through and were resting under the skin on the off side. 19.5 pounds, 7/8" spurs and a 8 3/4" beard and boy was he SOAKED! For those who think the 20 is too light for big turkeys needs to give HTL loads a try! I know I'm impressed. :turkeytrack:
The bird and the "Little Monster".
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Her's what a turkey's head should look like after taking a healthy dose of the nasty!!
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:o
:z-guntootsmiley: :z-guntootsmiley: :toothy12:
congrats, looks like the little 20ga did a fine job.
Shane
I love my 20ga! They kill like a 12 ga. without the weight and recoil and the shells cost less too!
Yeah man! It'salmost as fun as hunting them with archery equipment. It's my nephew's gun so it looks like I'm gonna have to go get one of my own. Thinking about one of the nice light semi autos though...maybe a mossy or an Bennilli?
:groupwave: :z-guntootsmiley: :you_rock:
That's pretty much the exact set up I wanna put together for my wife next year.
I've seen some nasty patterns out of 20's with te right shell choke combo
Can I ask far was that shot. I have taken birds at 6yds with my 12ga and have never seen wreckage like that.
It was 37 yards. :z-guntootsmiley:
congrats and welcome to the 20ga club