Had a great opening day here in Oklahoma and was fortunate to put one on the board for team Eastern Assassins!!! Here's the big boy I have been watching the past week. Well, all the scouting didn't do me any good, because I didn't take into account all the road hunters that would be out and bumping my turkeys today. I actually was working this bird two hours before I shot him. He was at 100 yds and closing and only needed to cross a county road and make it across a small field to my setup. He had just placed one foot on the road headed my direction when I hear some terrible yelping and a gobble call coming from just over a rise in the road a quarter mile away. I knew nobody had permission to be there and it really had me scratching my head till I heard the truck start up and come toward the tom, scaring him off over the hill he'd just strutted down.
Needless to say, that hunt was over....and after a talk with my neighbor, who happens to be the game warden, I went to go check out another spot. Jakes....jakes, and more jakes......that was the story all the rest of the morning. I decided to head back to my earlier spot to see if the tom I was working this morning had circled back to see where the hen had gone before the date was so rudely interrupted. And what do ya know? There he is back on the hillside with three jakes in tow. I rushed back to my old spot and let out some yelps and he answers immediately, but so do the jakes. They all came across the road without any interruption this time, and I was worried the jakes would run the tom off. Luckily, this big boy had a pair and made sure he was first on the scene.
At 38 paces, I let the supermagnum toss a 2&1/4 oz. load of heavy 7's his way, folding him up in his tracks! Not a single flop, just a quick drop. He should help out the team score, and is one of my top ten rio's all time body and spur wise. My little girl Natalie was pretty excited for daddy and wanted to take a picture. She's 19 months old and loves watching hunting shows with daddy.....only a few more years and she'll be sitting between my legs with her own shotgun maybe? Hope you all are enjoying your seasons as well as I did today. I will be back after them in a couple weeks to try to better my score if possible, but at 62+ points, he'll be hard to beat for a rio.
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Congtrats on a nice bird, I was expecting to get on here tonight and see where you had dropped the hammer on one that's awesome. I never had any doubts about you that's why I wanted you join our team. Congrats again and cute baby girl by the way. :happy0064:
That's a fine looking bird right there and that lilltle girl of yours sure is precious. :fud:
Congrat's on a fine Gobbler FttFttVroom. I guess I got on to early last night to check on how you had done. Sounded like you had the birds patterned really well. Too bad you had some problems in the morning but it paid off in the end. Well done. :you_rock:
Congrats and way to stay with it on that old boy. Those spurs are definitely going to score big.
Great bird love thouse BIGHOOKS, I wounder why LOL...Johnny...