Weekend Success!

[WisTurk]

It was a chilly 34 degrees saturday morning in northcentral Wisconsin but the birds were fired up and gobbling on their roosts).  I sat at on the west end of a cut cornfield facing east (my only place to sit on this piece) and immediately had a tom gobbling his tail off about 300 yds away on the southeast corner of the field before it was really even light out.

He must have gobbled over 100 times on the ground strutting and making his way over to my decoys and responding to my light calling.  Then I had a hen fly down to the north of my setup along the woodline and make her way to my decoys to check them out as well.  She was none to happy to see them there and was clucking and cutting at them and was rather annoyed at their presence.  But she soon lost interest and moved on in front of me and made her way to the southwest corner of the field and into the woods.  The tom was still gobbling and strutting about 75 yards away from my setup and did not want to come any closer.

Then I noticed another fan to the northeast making its way in my direction (never heard him gobble at all), but there was a slight rise in the field that I could only see the top of his fan.  Well the first tom got a little bored with the decoys since they weren't playing his game and I think he was a bit intimidated by the 2nd gobbler so he moseyed off to the south end of the field and into the woods. 

So now I focused my attention to the 2nd tom who it turns out had a couple of hens that he was courting and was also joined by a couple of jakes as well who kept their distance.  After watching them for over 2 and a half hours in the field (the tom could have cared less about anything but those hens), they eventually started making their way over to me.  The jakes were eventually run off by the tom and walked off the field in the same direction as the 1st tom.

I knew the only shot I had at this guy was if the hens he was with would drag him close enough to my setup.  Finally they hens came by the decoys to see who the new girls were, but the tom was still about 30-40 yards behind them strutting for the hens.  After eyeballing my dekes for what felt like an eternity, they walked off in front of me following the direction of the 1st hen.  Mr. Tom finally walked over to the decoys to check them out too, and started to follow the hens which proved fatal when he walked in front of the mossberg and I popped him at about 20 yards. 

He had a 9.5" beard, spurs were 1" and 1-1/8" and sharp! (guessing at least a 3 year old), and weighed in at just over 22 lbs.

Sorry for the long story!

[tomstopper]

Nice bird. Congrats

[taylorjones20]

Congrats!

[renegade19]

 

[surehuntsalot]

    congrats

[Greg Massey]

Great story and a nice bird.

[Snood Life]

Awesome, congrats!!!

[WillowRidgeCalls]

Good bird  .

[Gold Spur]

Way to go! 

[Dr Juice]

Good deal. Congrats.

[cramerhunts]

Congratulations on a very nice bird!

[hobbes]

Congrats!

[perrytrails]

That sounds like a perfect morning, congrats!!

[scbowhunterspbg]

Congrats nice bird and story

Thanks for sharing

[boomer]

Congrats!

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