There was a good bird on one of my favorite turkey properties. I first saw him on the youth opener when I tried to put my buddy's kid on a bird. We saw 7 longbeards that day. One was trailing tight to 8-9 hens while the other 6 gobblers were staying back 80 yards or so. I figured he must have been the chief because those other birds wouldn't give him any sass.
I missed the opener because I was in New York doing family stuff, but I hit the woods twice later in the morning through the week. I have the kids in the morning so I can't get in the woods until 8:30 at the earliest.
The first time I ran into a bird by himself that gobbled twice, but as I stood on the logging road waiting for him to give me a direction, he came running up over the hill and spotted me at 20 steps. I stood their like an idiot with my gun on my shoulder.
The second day I never heard a peep although I had those 6 longbeards within 80 yards of me again. They wouldn't even listen to my calls and walked the opposite direction.
I told my brother after that day that the Chief had to die if that farm was going to liven up at all. I think the other birds were afraid to gobble around him.
One way or the other, ambush or not, I said that bird was going to be in my truck.
The second Saturday was the first actual sunrise morning I had to hunt for myself.
I decided to sit on an oak flat where the birds sometimes roost and just listen first thing in the morning. The woods were completed still and very quiet when suddenly the first gobble of the morning came thundering down not 60 yards to my left. I just kept quiet and let him gobble another dozen times or so on the limb. My position was perfect between him and the field above me.
He dropped down from his roost about 60 yards out and immediate went into full strut, white head glowing in the gray light, and drumming very loudly. I gave him a few very subtle yelps and he hammered back.
For the next 10 minutes or so he put on a spittin' and drummin' seminar like nothing I've ever heard before. Time and time again......."fffttt..vooooommmmmmmb". I must have heard it 60 times this morning and it was absolutely one of the coolest things I've ever experienced in the woods.
Out of nowhere the hens started to show up. The first one ran right past me and hurried quickly to the gobbler. Another approached from beyond him, a few others were causing a ruckus up towards the field, and a lone hen appeared 15 yards to my left. I was frozen down on my gun barrel because I had no idea if there were hens I couldn't see. I'm fairly certain he bred a hen according to their body movements and the 45 second pause in his near consistent drumming.
The hen to my left let out a high pitch almost Keekee yelp and that brought the hen that the gobbler was with running right over to her. That was the green light I needed and I knew for certain he was going to die in short order. He quickly followed in full strut, closing the gap into the red zone and I was going to just let him keep right on walking right into my barrel, but one of the hens let out a sharp Putt PUTT! He took one last step to clear a tree and at 37 yards I knocked him flat on his back with a load of 3" #5 Longbeards. And all that fun was over at 6:04 am.
I'm hoping that those other 6 jokers figure out it's time to establish a new pecking order and get a little more aggressive in the coming weeks.
20.8 pounds
9.5" beard
1 1/4" and 1 5/16" spurs
Tail fan measured 30.5" across the bottom. One of the biggest fans I've killed and it once again seems to follow the idea that big tail fans belong to the oldest birds.
