Thursday night my friend Terry invited me and a couple other guys back to a big farm he has. Back on the second day of the Ohio regular season Terry had me and my little 9 y. o. youth buddy Jaxon at this same farm and Jaxon killed his second bird. Terry had been having a lot of action on the farm but had not been able to get a bird killed. The four of us met up at the top of the farm and looked at satellite photos and came up with a game plan. Another buddy Mike had yet to kill his first turkey, so we put him in a blind Terry had set up, and being the good friend I am, I volunteered to go to the far end of the farm and hunt where no one had hunted or scouted for a couple weeks.
I got to the corner of the same field where Jaxon had killed his bird as the sky was lightening, and was met with nothing but silence. Not a bird was gobbling! I rarely hunt a spot that I'm not relatively sure where birds are roosted so I don't typically use locator calls. Since I had a feeling I might be going in where no one had hunted or scouted for a couple weeks, I pulled out my secret weapon, a locator I've never used; a coyote howler. I stepped into an opening where a wagon path came out of the woods and fired off a long, drawn out howl. 50 yards away a bird gobbled. I had to have walked darn near right under him on my way in! Since it was getting light fast, I grabbed a big oak tree and settled in where I had a 20-25 yard shot if he came out on the same path I had gotten to the field on.
He fired off again, and another bird only about 30 yards to my left gobbled back. A third bird gobbled behind me, probably 100 yards back in the woods. Here I was, thinking I was taking one for the team, and I was surrounded by gobblers! I stayed quiet until it was after legal shooting time and plenty light enough for flydown. With three birds within 100 yards, I decided to do a flydown simulation to try and get one of them to beat the competition and be the first one to the party. The bird to my left pitched down immediately about 60 yards away in the field. I yelped a couple times and he turned towards me. The bird to my right gobbled, and apparently scared the bird on the ground. He turned away and walked off around the hill.
I stayed quiet, and the bird to my right hammered away, gobbling at a backup alarm, cows mooing, car horns, crows, and other gobbles. I figured my only chance was to stay quiet and hope that he didn't have a harem of hens gathering under his tree. FINALLY, at 6:55 AM, (he' been gobbling since before 5:30 AM), he flew down. When I heard his wings and the sound of his feet hitting the leaves, I yelped softly 3 times. Seconds later he strode out the path I thought he would and into my field of view. I settled the crosshairs on his head and let the Winchester Supreme #5's do their job.
He had matching sharp 1" spurs and a 9 ½" beard.
