your first solo spring bird

[Sixes]

I was a lot older than most on here, I just never found the fascination until I actually hunted turkeys. I've been a big deer hunter since I could go and my Dad was always the turkey hunter and I fished in the spring. During one deer hunt, he finally talked me into going that spring. I practiced with a mouth and box call, I sounded terrible, where as now just sound bad, but where we were going was a basically an unhunted quail plantation that his friend owns. There might of been 3-4 turkey hunters a year that got an invite to hunt the property, so birds were there in good numbers.

We hunted together early April that spring, with him there for backup on calling or just tips if I needed anything. Right after daylight, I saw 10-12 hens and 4 longbeards pitch out in a field a couple hundred yards away. They were gobbling their heads off that morning. I ended up making a couple of calls with the box and I saw 2 of the longbeards break off and start out way.

My Dad told me to call again and then get ready. Sure enough, I yelped on the box and all the birds gobbled including the 2 headed our way. 5 minutes later, they were 30 yards away looking for a hen and boom, my first turkey was down.

Ended up killing mya second one about 2 hours later on a different part of the property. I thought turkey hunting was easy at that point, but have since learned the truth. It's still not difficult if you have a lot of unpressured birds, but can be as frustrating as anything on pressured wary birds.

[POk3s]

There are some great stories on here!

Living in Southwest Wyoming I didn't have any turkeys that weren't a drive away. Me and my dad always talked about going to the black hills and finally did when I was 18 (I think). We both had to slowly figure out how to hunt them. All of them by spot and stalk in those early years after failing on the roost. I enjoy stalking anything, even if it's turkeys and some "frown upon it"

Anyway, my first solo bird came on a piece of private property in the black hills I got lucky to find. The far back valley (2600 acres I think) was the steepest on the property and Inhad seen birds the year before down on the neighbors property in the creek bottom. I stood at the edge looking down into this massive canyon and gave a few loud cuts. I was cut off with a gobble and saw him with his hens across that steep valley and feeding close to the ridge top on the other side. That's all I needed. I slid down the steep hill, and up a ravine on the other side. Circling around I got just about to the last place I saw the bird and heard birds over the hill to my left. I backed up, peeked over the hill to my left and had turkeys at less than 10 yards. I looked them over carefully and all I saw were hens. CRAP! Backtracking again I was back where I was initially going to pop over when a hawk screeched and shock gobbled him. I had him pegged now. I popped over the hill, smoked him, and he flopped ALLLLL the way to the bottom of that valley. I even have a picture of mine. I'll dig it up!

[compton30]

There's nothing that makes hunting turkeys more addicting than that first solo bird.