New Jersey 5/2-3/2022
Talked with some new friends Sunday when we arrived in New jersey preparing for our hunt the next day. They gave us some insight on were to hunt and pointed out a small private land field that I could hunt. I had one zone and Reid had another adjacent zone. We made our plans for the next morning and spent the rest of the afternoon scouting in our zones.
Monday morning greeted me with the same I had been getting everywhere else, all quiet. It was kinda nasty and hazy out and I sat on the small field as long as I could then got up and hit the road looking at all the public in the zone. I get a text and a pic from Reid as he'd found a willing gobbler. As I was making my way to one spot I passed up my road so I just decided to go to the next road and come in from a different direction. The Good Lord sure works in mysterious ways. As I'm driving around I spot some birds off the roadway and 3 of them are strutting. Looks to be 2 jakes a long beard and some hens. And they are about half a mile from the public land I wanted to look at. I drove past them and went to the public but someone was parked at the gate so I turned around and drove back out to look at the birds from the road. I decide what the heck, I pulled into the drive close to where they were at and knocked on the door, no one was home. I drove to the next house, the field they were actually in, I knocked and was greeted by a super nice guy and we talked for a while and he was just amazed that I would drive from South West MS all the way to NJ to chase a turkey and ended up giving me permission to chase the birds on his land but with one stipulation, I had to get permission from the neighbor sense you have to be greater than 150yds away from a dwelling (house) to discharge a firearm. He told me she was a nature lover but that she would shoot ground hogs so I might have a chance.
When I open my truck door at his neighbors house all I hear is gobbling and it is close. She comes out on the porch and ask if she could help me and as I walk up to her steps I couldn't help it I said yes ma'am I was going to see if it would be possible to maybe hunt a turkey on your place as I'm pointing in disbelief at this beautiful gobbler and 2 jakes walking away gobbling from her bird feeders in her yard. We talked for a little while and she told me she would like to be able to give me permission, but she had, had so many and run-ins with poachers and even had someone shoot over her head because they got mad that she didn't want them on her place and that she had called the law a few times. All I could say was wow that's awful and I hated that people like that ruin it for people like me. She said she was glad I asked but just couldn't let me on her property and told me that if I could go on the property farther back, she wouldn't have an issue. I pulled my phone out and pulled up a map and told her that her neighbor had given me permission and that I just didn't want to make her mad and I asked her that if I got all the way at the farthest end of the property would that work and she said yes that would be fine just to please not shoot back towards her house and I assured her I would not. I was well over the min distance to hunt the neighbors place but I just thought it was right to have his neighbors permission also.
I can't do anything with the birds until the next day because there was no way to move anywhere on the property I could hunt so I haul it back to my small private field just in time to get in the woods around 11am and I make some calls and a bird gobbles way off in the distance so I call more then a lawnmower cranks up and goes to cutting grass between me and the bird. I sit watching and listing for the bird but nothing only the lawn mower. Until 12PM and I get up and walk to the truck since its no more hunting. At 12:05 the mower cuts off at 12:10 while I'm standing at my truck I hear a gobble and just laugh, walk up to where I can see and a big gobbler steps out right where I was sitting at 12:15pm go figure.
We go have a celebratory meal for Reid and his bird at a local pub, godfather phillycheese steak and a pork bun and cheese. Another great meal.
I try to roost them as best I could, but it was hard since 99% of the woods were on her place. I get set up about 4:15am Tuesday morning and what a perfect hide it was. 15yds off the end of the property was a double oak tree with a honeysuckle bush on the left side of it, down the fence row behind me was a wall of cedar trees. 4 acre field to my left and an 100yd wide grown up field in front of me with about 15yds of brush till it got the field edge. I cut a few cedar limbs from a few different trees and placed them in front of me to add to the little cover I had. I had a small 15-20deg cone I had decided would be where I could shoot and the shot would be 10-15yds I hoped. Way to close but it's what I had to work with. As day light starts breaking through the dark night sky I hear a bird gobble and he's behind me a little ways, I give a tree yelp and he answers, I give another and he answers, I give one more and a hen goes crazy then pitched out into the field about 150yds away. The next time I hear him gobble he's going the other way gobbling. I just shook my head. After a 20min there are 2 hens and 2 strutting jakes in the field. One hen breaks away and walks by me at 10yds and I was thinking that if they will just do that I may get a shot. I ease up and check the field behind me every few minutes but stull nothing. Then about an hour later I look back and was taken away there are now 5 strutting jakes, 1 full fan with a crooked feather in the fan and 3 hens. The jakes are giving the hens fits and are chasing them all over the field and the full fanned bird is chasing them whipping them every chance he got. It was wild but they are behind me and are 150yds out in this field.
I watch them do this for about 10min until they work up parallel to me and then they start back down the field going away from me. When they got behind me, I just kept watching them and all of a sudden they all break strut on start jogging towards the wood line behind me. I started looking trying to figure out what was spooking them and then I see it thought the thick bushes, it's a new hen and they are all going to check her out. But she decides she's not much on the big wad of birds running at her so she turns and starts up the wood line to my corner of the field, I see what's happening and set down and get as low as I can because things just got real. 3 hens walk by me at 3yds, the 5 jakes come strutting by me at 6yds and I catch movement in the corner of my eye and I see a bird cut in the woods just behind the honeysuckle bush I'm siting in and my heart sank, was that the gobbler going in the woods literally feet from me or was that the 4th hen. I had to calm my nerves because the other birds were so close, all standing withing 8yds of me now. Then I catch movement though the honeysuckle bush, a big dark abject with a glowing white head is coming straight at me, It's him and when he stops he is no farther than a foot and a half, yes that's correct a FOOT and a HALF from the end of my gun barrel. He's so close he can peck a leaf of the honeysuckle bush that my gun barrel is now setting in pointing at him. He's in half strut and he's staring at the hens and jakes. I'm literally about to pass out at this point. He comes out of half strut to look at the other birds and at this point I decide there is no way I'm hitting his head so I just leave my dot where it is and when he stands up out of that half strut my red dot is settled on the tip of his wing and that's the last I remember, I think I blacked out for a second. Well the black out turned into sheer ciaos when he rolled and got up running, panic mode set in and I airballed 2 more shots no clue other than stupidity and freaking out on my part. He makes it to the thicket and disappears and I'm left dogging myself on how in the world can you flub a sub 2foot shot, I mean really. I took about 5 minutes to calm down and regroup and dig out more shells and in those few minutes I watch the thicket as I see 5 jakes ease off onto the next property. I never see the gobbler I shot move through the thicket so I'm hoping he's lying dead in the edge of it. I ease down the thicket edge and spot him tucked under a bush, I don't want to shoot him in that position so when I move to reposition, he comes out of there, he's pretty bad off and I take my time and finish what I had so gravely started. I was so mad at myself for wounding him, I never want any animal to suffer at all. I don't want then to even know what happened to them. I looked at where I had hit him the first shot and it was exactly where I wanted to hit him, I just clipped the big curve in his wing but I guess he had turned a little and I didn't realize it so the shot went through his crop and then into the opposite breast close to the wing. I missed his spine by a fraction of an inch. If I'm ever in that position again I'll try to make a head shot if my nerves will allow me to do so but shooting ones beak off would be worse in my mind if he runs or fly's off. Didn't want to add all that, it sure woulda sounded better had it ended with the first shot and believe me I woulda been happier too. But it is all part of hunting the good and the bad.
After I looked at the entrance of the first shot, I picked him up and was awe of his weight he was a big bird, then I see his beard and said out loud dang that's a nice one. But then I catch a glimpse of something behind his wing and I said no way I just saw what I think I saw and sat him down and moved his wing out of the way. I took a step back and just stared at his spurs, I've never personally seen anything like them in person only in pics. Both were broken but in tack, I guess he's fought so much and they were so long that he snapped them but they are still solid and sharp.
I knelt down and said my prayers and said many many thanks to the Good Lord above for letting me take the largest wild turkey I've ever seen, I woulda been just as happy with a 2yr old but my gosh this one takes the cake.
I gave the landowner the breast that had no hole in it and he text me a couple days later and told me how good it was and how much his kids loved it.
The landowner told me about a cool little café in town so I hit it up and got their house double cheese burger with their signature house made gravy and sauce on it. And they even had sweet tea so it was an extra good meal.
25.56lbs
10 3/16" thick beard
just over 1 5/8" spur
just over 1 7/8" spur
Bird of a lifetime for me
He was standing in the dirt just to left of the cedar limb in this pic I believe I could have touched him with my barrel with very little effort.
