Turkey time in TN

[pullit]

Well the morning started off a little slow, just hearing one lone gobbler way way off. Hope for a great opening morning was slipping fast and reality was setting in that this could be a long day. About 7 am a lone hen came in and messed around my new decoy "Mary Ann" (everyone knows that Mary Ann is better looking than Ginger). The hen stayed around for about 20 min's and she finally headed off to do other things. About 10 min's later, another hen comes in and man is she fired up! She is cutting, and clucking for all the world to hear, which is fine with me. She goes over and checks "Mary Ann" out as well. After about another 10 min's things really start to look up as gobblers are firing up in several places in response to all of her calling. I lean over and whisper to my buddy that we should be seeing something just about any time.
In just a few min's I look up and here comes a jake an another hen. The jake makes a bee line for Mary Ann. Well sense this is a family forum, lets just say the jake fell in love with my decoy and the court ship lasted about 30 min. At one point I leaned over and whispered to my buddy that he should go ahead and shoot that jake as he would never be the same after Mary Ann
We had gobblers still hammering away all around us the whole time the "courtship" was going on but none would come in or close enough to see the decoys or the jake. Then all of a sudden the gobblers that were just on the other side of a grown up fence row shut up, and a minute or two later the ones in the woods straight across from us went silent as well. Turns out (we found out later, two guys slipped in and was trying to bush whack the birds    ).
Everything was silent until about 12 noon when I called and got a gobbler to answer me. We  could not get him to come on and play but he would gobble from time to time.
About 12:30 I look up and there are two gobblers that are at about 50 yrds out just looking things over. I can tell by their body language that they are not wanting to come into our decoys and starting to go around us.  I ask my buddy if he can slide over and shoot out of my window of the blind and I will shoot out of the side window. We make our move and the gobblers are at about 35 yrds and are going to go past us.I get my Fastfire II turned on and I count it down 3,2,1, boom my buddies gun goes off and mine will not fire! It is at this point that I remember that in all the excitement of moving, and getting ready, I forgot to take my gun off safety. I about straightened the trigger on that Mossberg 935 pulling on it. My buddy had missed his bird and it was headed for the wood in the direction they came from. My bird was going to head to the woods on our side of the field but changed his mind and ran in a circle to join his buddy. I could see that if I waited another second or two my tom would be at the bottom of loop and I would have a straight on shot with no lead. This time I had the gun off safety and was ready to shoot. When the FFII red dot touched the gobblers head, I let a payload of #7's fly. That bird dropped like a dog that had just run out of chain.
I was so sure my buddy and I were going to double, but I guess that will have to happen on another hunt.
My bird tipped the scales at 21lbs, had a 9" beard, and 7/8" spurs. Not a text book hunt my any stretch but like I have always said, I would rather be lucky than good any day.

[Rio Fan]

Congratulations!

[Frankinthelaurels]

sweet!!

[Ol'Mossy]

Congrats

[Woodsman4God]

Congrats

[gophert]

Way to go!!!!  Good story and nice heavy bird!

[Stoney Creek]

Congrats on a great hunt and bird!!!!!

[boomer]

Congrats!!

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk

[MiamiE]

Congrats man! Bad luck on the safety though.

[slee]

Congrats

[Hognutz]

Congrats !!

[VA_Birdhunter]

Congrats!! 

[pullit]

Congrats man! Bad luck on the safety though.

I like I have always said, "you going to be dumb, you have to be tough"

[pseshooter300]

Congrats

[surehuntsalot]