It still hurts

[FullChoke]

Troop,

As our upcoming season progresses, for one reason or another we will start having experiences with these birds that simply don't turn into a Spread-Fan-Hero-Shot photo op. You know what I am talking about. Your story might be about how you literally got caught with your britches down, a missed chip shot at an easy standing target, forgetting to load your gun or you just got your butt handed to you by the wiliest, walnut-brained,  bag of feathers in North America.

Share your pain with us and I promise  we will laugh with you, not at you.   

FullChoke

[gophert]

My hunting is riddled with mis-haps and they are usually all my fault.  This was the last hunt of last year on a bird I had hunted hard the last 2 weeks of the season.  Finally got between him and his hens on the roost.  Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/pAe4HjsWOI4

[FullChoke]

A few years ago I was hunting a friends cattle ranch in northern Arkansas. The first morning I went to an area where I knew that the birds liked to roost when I was there the previous year. Sure enough, there is one hammering down a ridge from the gravel road I'm walking on. I slip quietly down the road and hear a second bird tree yelping right in front of me. This bird quietly yelps a few times...they he gobbles! It's a gobbler and not a hen! I freeze where I am as he is in the top of a tree that has him about eye level with me at 40 yards distance. Eventually he flies down and I spot him for a moment through the leaves as he lands. The original bird is now on the ground and gobbling consistently. I figure that the closer one was going to head down to his buddy, so after about 5 minutes I start slipping down the gravel road again. A few steps and I hear a sharp cluck from the closer one. He heard me in that gravel, but doesn't exactly know what I am. I pick a close tree and walk over to it, clucking quietly on a mouth call while I get set up. I scratch in the leaves a little and get propped up. Directly he gobbles and he is very close and getting closer. He gobbles just out of sight in front of me, but I can't get a good read as to which direction he will come around the tree top in front of me. Finally I spot him moving to my right as he crosses through an opening in the limbs. He steps behind a screen of vines, I slowly shift the gun slightly to the right side of the vines. Countdown to flopping bird is in 3, 2...and suddenly there are birds flying off in all directions and I spot the gobbler running away. NOW, I KNOW that he didn't see that movement!

Suddenly, I spot something moving on the road right next to me out of the corner of my eye. I crane my eyes hard to the left to get a good identification of it. It is the family's Bloodhound dog! It turns out that the family woke up back at the house and let Earl out to pee. Apparently, he picked up my scent in the yard, trailed me, and stumbled right into the setup at EXACTLY THE WRONG MOMENT. I have been busted by non-turkey entities before, but never so perfectly synchronized and that close to popping a cap in one's head!

FC

[FullChoke]

Many years ago when I was first learning how to hunt turkeys, I struck a gobbler that sounded like he had hens with him. I listened to the direction that he was going and decided to loop ahead of him on an old road along a slough. I started easing along and stepped out of a cane thicket and spotted 2 hens perched on the limbs of a dead tree top about 30 yards away. Somehow they had not seen me when I walked into view. I reached up and pulled my face mask down and started taking inventory. There turned out to be 15 hens feeding in the tall grass right in front of me. Directly I heard a sound that had been described to me, it was a spit and drum. I watched carefully and finally spotted the gobbler strutting about 45 yards away. The hens were moving away from me, so once I saw that everyone had moved away, I started easing down the road to try and intercept the strutter.

I took 2 steps and glanced back towards the gobbler and there were 5 hen heads stuck up out of the grass on full alert. One of them putted loudly and the grass exploded with turkeys flying everywhere. I shouldered my gun and started trying to figure out which one was the gobbler. After the initial chaos and mass departure, I just let out a sigh and deduced that I had just blown a prime opportunity. I never expected to hear that sound again, but there was that spit and drum again. Suddenly he lifted up out of the grass and dropped over into a small clearing, and ran over into the road right in front of me. I popped my gun up to my shoulder and shot when the sight hit his head. He flipped over onto his back, kicking. I told myself to calmly shuck in another round and go get him.

I could not believe my eyes, but he flipped over onto his feet, stood up and started running. I fired at him again, blowing feathers out of him and he took to the air. I carefully took aim and shot my last shell, again blowing feathers out of him, but he kept going in full power flight.

I stood there with an empty gun and a completely sick feeling in my stomach. Would he survive the shots or die hiding somewhere in a thicket? I was empty. To add insult to my injured ego, just then a feather came floating down right in front of me and I caught it in the air. I don't know, I just don't know.

FC

[harleytom]

One of mine was last year. Had been watching a one of the better birds on my small home plot for a couple of months. As the season started I noted on, on game camera, him coming into a particular field late afternoons on most days. In late March I had an out of town trip that was really putting a hurt on my hunting. On the last day I realized that if I wrapped up my business by noon I could make the 4 hour drive back home just in time to squeeze a couple of hours of hunting in. Needless to say, I rushed through and set out determined to give that bird a try. I had two blinds set up on the field, one on the side the turkeys usually came out on and the other on the opposite side, mainly put there in case they were already on the field when we arrived and allowed us to slip in without being seen. Well, I guess lack of sleep and the long drive caused me to make my first mistake of the day, I chose to sit in the second blind despite no birds being in field when I got there. I settled in and began to call occasionally. My mind had began to drift after about an hour and I suppose I began to think this just wasn't going to work out when I looked up to see the gobbler on the opposite edge of the field (within 15 yards of the other blind. He began to work toward me in the field when I made my second mistake of the day, I got inpatient and decided to take the shot at 35 yards. I guess I was afraid he might ease back in timber to some hens that I knew rooster nearby, but in any case I didn't wait long enough for him to work closer. I drew down on his head and flipped the safety off. It was at that point I made my third and biggest mistake of the day. As I was beginning to squeeze the trigger he put his head back down to peck at something. Rather than waiting for him to lift it up again, I chose to follow his head down and took the shot as it neared the ground. As I shot the bird jumped straight into the air, twisting and flapping as he went. I just set there watching expecting him to hit the ground in a crumpled heap, but he didn't. He instead hit the ground on his feet and running back toward the timber from where he came. By the time I got over my shock I had just enough time to take 2 hasty, and unproductive, shots at him before he got out of sight. I scrambled out of the blind and ran after him but he was not to be seen again. Going back to where he stood on the initial shot I found plenty of feathers and figured that I must have broke his wing with the shot which explained his actions post shot. To say I was sick was an understatement. I searched for hours around every brush pile writhing 200 yards but could not find the gobbler. My cameras never caught him in the field again, basically confirming my worst fears. While I went on to kill 3 birds that season, including my personal best, the memory of the mistakes I made that day still haunt me still. Maybe it was because of the fact that I had been watching him for a long time or the fact he would have been the first "home grown" bird taken on my property. Mainly I think it was because I made a bad shot on an animal that I have come to respect and admire so much. He didn't get my best effort that day and he deserved that at least.

[FullChoke]

Last year was a weird one for me. I decided to devote my season to one gobbler and he skunked me over and over.

Anyway, the highlight of my season each year is when I get the chance to head south of town and hunt gobblers with our longtime team mate and good friend, Surehuntsalot. His birds are tough to hunt, even by Mississippi standards! Last year I was pleasantly surprised when I had a gobbler on a ridge above me start hollering. I gave him the what for and he hammered right back at me. I cut him off with cutting and hard yelps, he double gobbled and went quiet. Well, I shifted on the tree, propped up and waited. Directly here he comes stomping down the ridge in half strut heading over to duke it out with my jake decoy. I swung onto him and putted real hard on my mouth call. He didn't slow down at all. I hollered at him "Hey, turkey" and he kept on truckin' to his whipping boy. I thought, alright, we can do this that way. I put the red dot on his red parts at 30 yards and shot. He flattened out on the ground, stood back up and took off running, leaving me sitting there with my blasted mouth hanging open. How. What. Why...

Steve and I headed over to his shooting range to get to the bottom of this hogwash. One shot at 10 yards showed I was shooting 8" to the right and 6" low.  oh.  I was able to get back on target, but it was all catch-up by this time.  I remembered bumping the sight  getting out of a friend's hunting cart the weekend before, but thought that it wasn't that hard and just went on hunting.

I wound up choking down a delicious tag sandwich last year. It was still fun. I will be burning some high-priced shells before season this year to confirm POI/POA.

Cheers. 

FC

[xarcher]

Wow those are awesome stories.  I am anxious to feel y'alls pain someday.  All of my hunts have been walk in the woods, make a few calls, here he comes walking right down the gun barrel and bam...dirt nap.  Must be doin sumpin wrong!  Maybe if I do this enough times I will learn the right way.   

[harleytom]

I think someone just jinxed themselves on this thread.

[FullChoke]

Took a friend's college roommate out one morning. I set him in one spot, told him to stay put and watch this side and then I slipped off about 30 yards, sat down and started calling. Directly a bird starts gobbling at me and is coming in slowly. Finally he sounds like he is just out of sight in front of me, when suddenly I hear numbnuts start whistling for me. He thought I had left him in the woods, never heard me calling, never heard the turkey gobbling progressively closer. He had gotten up and was wandering down through the woods whistling for me. Needless to say, the gobbler split for quieter places. This clown wanders around whistling while I sit there whistling back at him making him completely confused. He finally just stands there and hollers "Where are you!?" I hollered back and we left the woods.

To my knowledge, no one ever took him back to the woods again.

FullChoke