Late afternoon Public Land Success

ElkTurkMan · March 31, 2013, 09:36:47 AM

I got down to my Lease Friday afternoon around 4:30. I got everything together and decided to hunt my way in. I got about 15 minutes into my hunt, when one of the weekend warriors(AKA DEERHUNTER /WANNABE TURKEY HUNTER), comes wissing by my on his four wheeler. He stops and we talk and he tells me where he is headed for the evening, then cranks his noisy machine upo and heads out. Then ten minutes later, another weekend warrior on his god forsaken machine flys by me. So I decided that since the lease had temporarily been turned into a atv Track, I would hunt the Federal ground that borders our lease. SO I made the thirty or so minute walk over to the National Forest land and set up in alikely spot where I thought I might catch one heading to roost. I got set up and did some light clucking and purring on my ceramic pot. About 5 minutes after I did this I catch movement. The federal alnd I was hunting has been burned and there is zero ground foilage, so you can see forever. Anyway I make out the crown of a gobbler about 150 yards away. He starts making his way towards me, but he is awful cautious. He keeps stopping and staring at me trying to find the hen. I didn't dare move a muscle. At one point he actually changed direction, but then right away came back to the original line of travel. WHen he got 60 yards out, instead of coming strait at me he starts to go parallel with me at an angle. He walks behind a huge pine and that allowed me to reposition and get the gun up. When he got to what I estimated was the 40 yard mark, I let him have it. I ran up to my prize and let out a celebratory holler. I was pumped. He ended up weighing an estimated 18#, had 1" hooks and his beard had one lone strand that hit the 12" mark. A very good bird for woods hunted as hard as these. It was around 6:15 when I gathered my stuff and took these pictures before the long walk out. All turkeys are awesome and I can't stress that enough, but public land birds are extra special. Here are the pictures and I used a timer on my camera, and in the first pic I know I look PO'D, but I just wasn't I just wasn'tready for the camera to go off lol.