Hello all,
Well this is my second year turkey hunting. I am pretty much addicted. This year I went to my wife's cousins property to hunt. I had gone there last year also but we saw very few birds at all. I have learned quite a bit from him about hunting. Both deer and turkey. He has been hunting longer than I have been alive. This is good and has a few draw backs. For example he doesn't keep up with the newer choke tubes and ammo. He bought one of the first ported undertaker chokes and like 5 boxes of Winchester supremes #5. He has had the same lot of shells forever. I have asked him how they pattern and all he ever said was they seem to do alright.
Anyway, back to the story. We went out on his property opening day this year and I spotted birds already in the field. He didn't believe me at first. I actually had to convince him they were there. What helped me do this was a coyote literally running right threw the middle of this flock and scaring the two gobblers into sounding off. finally he was like "O, yea I see them now!" So we put a stalk on these birds. They were just a bit out of reach. They started to move off before we could get much closer. He was pretty much ready to give up on the flock when through the woods I saw movement in a small field off of the main field. He pretty took my word for it and we headed down there. He knew a path that lead parallel the field that would keep us hidden from anything in it.
So, we get to an opening and I see the same group of birds. I kept hearing one of hens soft yelping and I would tell him to yelp back softly when I heard it. Apparently it pissed her off enough to come back and check things out. The two toms lead the way. I knew he had them at that point. He tells me to shoot the lead tom when I am ready. So I get ready, take aim and start to shake a bit and panic a bit. I shoot at the first out stretched head and neck I see. It was the second bird...not the first like he told me. Well the bird goes down and flops and bit. The first kind of hunkered down then few off. The bird I shot is flopping with only one wind and could not walk either. It was however still alive. So, he puts to shells into it. To be honest the bird didn't act much different. It just kind laid there still flopping the one wing a bit.
We get over there and he asks "did you shoot that first bird?" I said no I paniced and shot this one. I could see the first bird but it had its head down facing me. All I could see was the top of its head in my red dot scope. So yea I shot the wrong bird. My fault and I accept that. However, the bird I did shot was laying dead before us. Then we have a little debate. He clearly wanted to claim the bird but knew I was the one that put it down. I didn't want to piss him off since it was his land. He and his wife have been good to me also. I told him "hey since there is a doubt about who put the bird in the dirt it's yours."
He tagged it and had me take a picture of him with it to send to his wife. My questions is would you have done that to a hunter that had never shot a turkey before? Personally if I had shot as many turkey as he has I would have given it to the newbie. I mean sh*t happens and I paniced. I get it. what would you all have done?
