2022 Story Thread

[a_jabbo]

Congratulations, Tom, on a great gobbler!!! Saturday is the opener here in PA and hoping to add some more stories for the group.

[Tom007]

Congratulations, Tom, on a great gobbler!!! Saturday is the opener here in PA and hoping to add some more stories for the group.

Good luck my friend, nail a big one!......thank you......

[Hoosier2]

Great bird Tom! Congrats. I hit it hard the last 3 days in Indiana. Unfortunately the birds just weren't in the right mood for me. Weather has been pretty pathetic here. I'm hoping to get another crack at them next weekend. I'm in the process of moving so my free time this year has been plagued plus trying to raise an 11 month old boy has been taking up more free time than birds this year but being a dad has trumped any bird I have taken and boy does he love turkey calls! Hopefully I can make it happen before the 16th!


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[Tom007]

Great bird Tom! Congrats. I hit it hard the last 3 days in Indiana. Unfortunately the birds just weren't in the right mood for me. Weather has been pretty pathetic here. I'm hoping to get another crack at them next weekend. I'm in the process of moving so my free time this year has been plagued plus trying to raise an 11 month old boy has been taking up more free time than birds this year but being a dad has trumped any bird I have taken and boy does he love turkey calls! Hopefully I can make it happen before the 16th!


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I am hearing that all over. Weather in NJ after Tuesday got horrible, windy as heck, and downright cold. Good luck to you, I am hitting NY tomorrow, weather looks good.....be safe

[Yoder409]

So, I put this guy to bed via long distance surveillance Friday evening.  He went up with 3 hens at the far corner of one of our fields.  I pretty much knew what this morning's game plan would be.  So I got into the woods edge bright and early........or more like dark and early and waited.  He fired up on the limb and gobbled a good bit.  Not a crazy lot.  But nice to listen to.  Toward flydown time I gave a few tree yelps.  He gobbled back but not aggressively.  I went quiet.......waiting for him to fly down.  I look out in front of me in the field and here comes a hen.   She was down and 150 yards up the field to me before the tom ever left the limb.  She started clucking and looking for me.  I heard the other birds pitch down and he gobbled once right after he hit the ground.  The hen clucking in front of me fired up the other two hens which were still 100+ yards to my right.  They were ALL SORTS of P.O.'ed and cutting up a storm.  They started to sound like the jealous type that would take the boy and go the other way. So I didn't call at all..........for probably 20 minutes.  Silence.  Then I hear one of the hens to my right yelping much more calmly.  I laid out a series just like she did and she answered back.  We went back and forth with friendly yelps.........her getting closer and closer.   Then I can see her coming.  Then I can see a full fan coming.  slowly she kept coming.  Slowly he kept following in full strut.  The hen passed in front of me with her white-headed boyfriend bringing up the rear.  At 30-31 yards, he semi broke his strut.  My red dot had been on his wattles for the last 30 yards or so.  The hammer fell on a Heavy 7 and opening morning success was mine.

The Delmar Odonnell photography award I will never receive.   





The weird thing about this morning............ The broken wing.  It is compound fractured and apparently it was self-inflicted as he did his death flop.  No pellets went through there.  But the bone was broken completely in two.  VERY strange.

[Tom007]

Great job brother....

[Mossyguy]

Congrats man....those are some pretty woods up there!

[Yoder409]

Congrats man....those are some pretty woods up there!

Thanks.

You'd have loved the pretty woods last Thursday when it was snowing...............   

[harleytom]

Congrats! Nice plan and even better bird!


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[POk3s]

Wooo! Finally on the board with a mature bird. I've been trying like crazy to get up to my usual stomping grounds in the black hills and surrounding areas but the weather has been complete garbage every weekend. Like, 2 DIFFERENT snow storms that dumped 1.5-2.5 FEET of snow depending on where you were. That was followed by bitter cold temps (like highs in the 20s). A buddy (who just moved to Wyoming from Oregon) and I had planned on hitting the black hills this weekend but the weather reared it's ugly gead again, dumping rain on already wet and muddy roads from the previous snow.

So we hit plan B which is Colorado. I had been a couple times and really couldn't wrap my head around anything there and find a "home". The birds are so spread out and nomadic that it just makes you want to pull your hair out finding sign but zero birds. Well this was the only game in town so we decided to really go for it.

We both left after work Friday and sped down there to roost birds. Nothing. Great. There was a spot I had heard a gobbler on two separate mornings but a year apart, and I couldn't figure out how to get into this piece of public. All the roads in there, came in off private land except potentially one. We decided it was our only option and we're up at 4 AM to make the 2 hour drive all the way around. We got there in perfect time to hear two different birds.

I wanted my buddy, Jared, to shoot first so we set up on bird #1 and got him into about 80 yards but never did see him as he skirted around. Jared decided to sneak up so I dropped to the back side of the ridge. After 5-10 minutes I see the birds all the way over to our right about 500 yards away. I decided I was in perfect position to make a move, so I did! I sprinted around to get set up ahead of the birds and gave out a series of yelps. He gobbled behind me! I moved a couple times and noticed he was over a steep bank from me. I snuck to the edge against a juniper and waited. I thought maybe I had bumped him when I heard PSST VRMM VRMMM right down my gun barrel. About that time he raised his head up above the brush. I thought "that's a 40 yard shot", called to him hoping to get him to come toward me a few feet and out of the brush but he simply moved his head higher. I decided it was now or never and dumped him there! A beautiful merriams in some different turkey country!




On our way out of that area we had a tom cross in front of us on the county road that bordered private land. We decided I'd drop Jared off at his truck, he would head back into the public side, while I cleaned my bird, searched for more gobblers, and roosted birds in the evening. About 7:00 as I climbed a ridge to listen, I got a text that there was no need and the bird was dead! What started as a trip with not much to go on, ended very quickly with both birds being taken on day 1.

[Yoder409]

Great stories and great pics !!!!!!!!!!   

CONGRATS to you both !!!

[Tom007]

Fantastic job, great story.....congrats

[POk3s]

Thank you gentlemen! What a whirlwind of a couple days but some fun times, and also PERFECT spring weather yesterday with blue skies and almost no wind. Really the first day all year it's been a joy to just be outside!

Also, as far as this contest is concerned, it looks like my bird will push us over that 500 point mark. Happy to have the lowest scoring bird on the team!

[twyatt]

Way to go guys!!!!

[Yoder409]

Well..................... The good is I was blessed to harvest another beautiful Easten longbeard at 6:10 this morning.  The bad is that he is not a team upgrade over my bird from Saturday.  The ugly is.......... I'm done.  Tagged out and it's 362 days til season opens again.   

I decided last night I was going to hunt one of my favorite "killing spots".  It's just one of those storied places.  To do well there, you have to get in EARLY.  The setup is only 90-100 yards uphill from the roost area and the woods is pretty open.  It's close to a half mile walk in the dark.....and this morning.....fog.   Can't use a light.  Bout only the last 125 yards is in the woods.  So I leave early, take my time and pick my way to a double cherry I call "the killing tree".  Got all situated by around 5:00 and waited.  At 5:27 a bird lit one off right down the hill.  Right where he was supposed to be.  I started glassing but couldn't pick him out.  But I did find a hen to the left of him.  He gobbled maybe 20-30 times from the limb.  The fog had pretty much dissipated and daylight was gaining fast.  So I got the gun on the stick and pointed downhill.  Dot turned on.  The hen I had glassed started tree talking softly.  And after a minute or two dropped out and landed 30 yards in front of me and 15 yards left.  Then another hen....maybe two..... dropped about 35 yards to my right.   The hen to my left came up the hill about 10 yards closer then crossed in front of me headed toward the hen on my right.  I glanced downhill from the hen to my right and see the top half of a fan.  Then hear the spit and drum.  From the time I saw him, I decided he was marginally in range and do-able if I had to.  The hens had gotten pretty much together to my right and were just milling around.  Then they started to walk on up the hill toward the level I was sitting on.  The gobbler had been strutting the whole time in the exact same spot. But he dropped strut and took a few steps up hill and fanned again.  I let out a series of soft yelps on a diaphragm.......waited about 10 seconds and did it again.  No change.  I really didn't want him to take the same path up the hill as the hens because shot opportunities were going to be few in that direction.  So I gave him another string of about 5 subdued yelps and he turned his big white head and spun to look right at me.  He strutted a few steps my way.  I had the dot on his wattles.  I let out another quiet series and he sort of broke strut ad his head came up slightly.  The trigger came tight and the deal was sealed.  6:10 AM with a 40-ish yard shot.  I went to my bird and found he was not the one I had hoped he was.  But that's huntin'.  I grabbed him up by the legs and he gave me something I've never had in 43 years of turkey hunting.............. A boo-boo.  Lousy turd didn't have monster spurs.  But one of them was sharp enough to bleed me through my Under Armour glove.

I didn't weigh him yet.   But I'm saying 17 pounds.  8 1/2" on the beard and   1" & 1 1/8" on the spurs.

So no upgrade.  But just a picture perfect, textbook hunt on a BEAUTIFUL morning.