I will try to sum up by opening day in NY that was a heartbreaker. Morning was slow due to the cold and wet. By 9 I was able to get 3 Toms running in to my decoy setup while blind calling (they were a long ways out when i first got a gobble). They got to 75 yards and my decoy fell over, they immediately spooked and walked away, Dang! Hit a property close by, spotted a Tom with some hens out in a field. Got this guy fired up and he was hot! worked him for 2 hours, but he would hang up at 60 yards. He gobbled at every call I made, well over 100 times. Farmer brought the spreader out at 1130 and scared them out of the field. I immediately went down to his strut zone when that happened and setup. I let things calm down for a few minutes, started cutting and he and his two jakes hammer back. Jakes ran by me at 10 yards, right down the hedge row. They started flogging my decoy and the big Tom comes running down the same path at 10 yards. I made the mistake of having my gun on my lap. When the tom got out in front, I raised up. As soon as I made the move, he busted and I took two shots. I finally got a crack at him at 1155, five minutes left of legal shooting time and missed. That totally stinks, but had a ton of action. Just had to share the hunt.
Man, what a day you had...good luck tomorrow....
You're subject sums it up....that hurts! Gotta whole month though....you'll connect!
You had just about every bad thing go wrong that could. Law of averages says you'll have everything go right next time! Good luck!
Sounds exactly how the subject is called...... it would hurt me real bad too! I guess that's why they call it huntin and not killin. Don't worry buddy, you will get em
It happens and it makes you want to puke :-X, but all you do is try and take it as a learning experience, put your boots on and keep after it!
Sounds like you had a good hunt. Sometimes things go our way n sometimes not. Keep at it
It happens to all of us. Doesn't take much at that distance to spook a bird. For future reference, and for all I know this may be exactly what you did, but I have learned that even an alarmed bird will allow you to get away with shouldering a gun IF you raise the gun slowly. One thing that will almost certainly never work out well is trying to quick draw a bird at that distance. Turkey wins nearly every time. Of course you likely already know that. Just thought I would give some helpful advice.
Good luck getting back on track.
Missing sucks!
But at least you're playing the game. It will happen, enjoy the chase.
In the end it's 10 lbs of meat you end up with.
It's more about an exiting hunt. And that you had. Plus you had to deal with some bad luck and you where able to over come. Sounds like a success to me. I know how you feel right now but you will score.
Thanks for the encouragement everyone. Today (the 2nd), I managed to take a really nice tom on the same farm, but on the back side of it. I am pretty sure it is a different than the one I missed. Funny thing is I took the bird today at 1100 am. I don't know why I even get up early, all my luck is late morning when they get lonely. This was a cool hunt as I saw the birds on a neighboring property, but was able to call them about 3-400 yards to the piece I could hunt. When they first gobbled, it was about as far as I can hear one. Always fun when you call one in from far away.
If it were too easy, it wouldn't be any fun, just tough to miss last minute like that. I will remember that one for a while.
Congrats on the tom!
Redemption is sweet. :toothy12:
Hunt long enough and it's bound to happen.... good luck and go get em !.