Four hour standoff

TRG3 · May 07, 2018, 04:59:50 PM

The fifth and final Illinois turkey season (each is about 5-7 days long) is scheduled to end this Thursday and I've been out every morning since it opened last Thursday, staying until noon. While I've heard several gobblers, none wanted to work, so this morning I was in a frustrated mood, even when I heard a gobbler some 200+ yards away. He was on property on which I did not have permission to hunt, do I'd have to lure him over if I hoped to fill my tag. I started with my usual return gobbling (Primos The Gobbler) to which he quickly responded, a good sign. When he flew down, he went the other way, staying some 200+ yards away, and continued to gobble every 10 minutes or so to which I'd sporadically reply, sometimes double gobbling. Eventually, I added some excited hen yelps hoping that he was in his strut zone, was experiencing no hens responding, and the peck order would kick in with him thinking that a strange gobbler was messing with a new hen in his territory. This scenario went on from 5:30-9:45 a.m. before he started moving my way as per his gobbling location. At this point, I quit all calling. I was sitting in my ground lounger about 10' back in the brush with my portable camo mesh netting staked in front of me. Through the foliage, I could see him coming with his head straight out front and at a very determined pace. He quickly closed the distance to my Funky Chicken which was hovering over a hen in the breeding position set up some 20 yards out in a picked corn field. He went face-to-face with Funky, circling him which forced me to wait. When he separated about 6-8", I settled the red dot on his head and squeezed off my 12 gauge load of Winchester XR Longbeard #5 shot from my 3" Remington 870. He dropped and barely flopped since the entire load probably smacked him as my inspection of his head later confirmed. Interestingly, none of the shot hit Funky which didn't surprise me since at 50 yards from my Undertaker choke the vast majority of the #5 shot from this load hit in a 12" circle with over 20 in the head/neck area. (See Michelle Bachman's 20-70 yard testing of this load on YouTube for something convincing.) Filling this tag completes the Illinois spring turkey season for me, allowing me to take a gobbler during the first season and missing one during the third season. Now it's wait until tree squirrel season opens on August 1st!

TRG3 · May 07, 2018, 05:09:53 PM

I left out the statistics...24 1/2#, 10" beard, and 1.25" spurs, one of the larger turkeys I've taken. Most of my larger turkeys have been taken during the 5th (last) Illinois season and normally take a couple of hours to finally lure in. I'm guessing that during the earlier season, the more mature birds have enough real hens to make them less attracted to calling or the peck order until being alone finally makes them more susceptible. It's amazing how days of frustration evaporate when that gobbler finally shows up!