Hey everyone, I hoped all had a Happy Easter. I havent been on here in a few days, had a really busy easter weekend with all my kids and didn't get a chance to get out with my brother for opening weekend of youth season. My dad took him however and they had a great time, saw and heard a ton of birds, gained permission for some new land, just didn't quite get one in gun range. So I decided I had time to take him after work yesterday afternoon. When we got to where we wanted to setup, there was already a big tom strutting in the field. So plan b was to sneak in the woods that lead to the field and setup and try and call him in. When we reached the field the bird was no where in sight. So I grabbed my brand new Spring Creek box call (which if you are in the market for a new box call, look him up). I let out my first series of yelps of the season and the first ever in the woods for that call, and one ripped back behind us in the woods. We debated a little and I called a couple more times with one or two more responses from him and decided to go after him even though we knew he was on the other side of the river from us. We moved in and setup pretty much right on the bank of the river, which is about 15 yard wide bank to bank there. I got after him, and the more aggressive I got the more he liked it and he got really fired up. Gobbling non stop. He came a little closer and then kinda hung up, so I fired him up again and the went silent. Little by little he worked his way in, with mostly clucking and purring to finish him. He stopped at about 55 yards for quite a while and just looked, still gobbling pretty good. Finally he worked in to about 35 yards and straight across the river in an opening and he let one rip. The bird rolled and laid there flopping, acting like he was completely smoked. So we went upstream about 40 yards to a more narrow spot in the river and my brother stripped down to his undies to wade across in the freezing water. Then, just as he is stepping into the river, the turkey hopped up and ran off, clearly hurt bad. He crossed the river and looked all over. He finally spotted him but said he was laying down but still alive and it was almost dark so he backed out and found me and we went back today during daylight. We looked everywhere we could in the pouring down rain and found absolutely nothing. I was sick about this all night, couldn't sleep at all and sick about it all day again today. I'm just so frustrated about it! Earlier today I didn't even know how I felt about hunting the rest of the season. It just sucks to lose an animal, feels like a waste. Plus it's one less bird in that woods to hunt without the benefit of a harvest. Idk how I feel now, but I do feel betting having put the effort in to look like we did. I suppose I'll like my wounds this week and get back at it this weekend. It was just an amazing start to the season and then took a horrible turn so fast!
