The gobblers that got away from you....

[turkeyhunter91]

last spring i hunted a bird several times and he always had hens and was 1 step ahead of me, the last week of season i started getting pictures of him in a little field almost everyday around the same time so i took a blind in and decided to wait on him. that morning i had him come out a couple times with his hens to about 35 yards but because of the grass he couldn't see my decoys and it was so windy and i was using my bow so i was afraid to try a shot. i had set there till about 3 when i look out the side of my blind and i see him running to my decoys. when he stepped in my window i was at full draw. i was shooting for his head and when i shot i thought i seen him drop in the tall grass but couldn't tell for sure. a couple mins later i look towards the decoys and there stands a tom that begins to whip my jake. i figured it was him but wasn't sure so i just videoed him until he walked off. i got out and sure enough it was him, i had made a clean miss. the week after season he returned to the little field to taunt me on cam.

[djrcm7]

I had hunted this 100 acre patch of timber surrounded by pasture. I had a big double beard (or so I thought) on trail camera for 3 years and had multiple encounters with him. I had him dead to rights one morning but had an ex girlfriend with me and was trying to get her a bird. We couldn't get it done. I was bummed. Two days later him and another tom came in to 45 yards and in my attempt to double with the girlfriend, we both missed.. I was so bummed, again. Never saw him the rest of that season and the next.
i continued to get pictures of him but couldn't seal the deal.
Opening morning of youth season in 2015 I took my brother out and worked a bird for two hours. He got henned up and we Called it quits. On the walk out I peak around the corner of the woods and catch a glimpse of a big strutter out in the field with a heriem of hens. I told my brother to give the strutter stalk a try.(this was private land that I was confident we were the only ones on). He proceeded to close a 300 yard gap and shot the tom at 2 steps. Turned out to be the biggest tom I'd ever seen in person.

[djrcm7]

Once in a lifetime bird

[Mbhyman88]

The two that stick out in my mind are two that I had in range but never took a shot at.  First one was actually three gobblers together late morning about 11.  I was walking the roads of a pine plantation and got to the back corner when I heard a bird gobble at a crow.  So I wait a minute and then try a little yelping and I get an answer, several answers.  I had three separate birds gobbling and headed my way.  I had picked a tree just off the road and when I thought they were within 100 yards I shut up.  On their approach I gathered that the three had fanned out with two birds sounding like they were just on the other side of the road from me and one straight in front of me.  I watch one bird walk 10 yards to my left just on the other side of the road.  I tell my self don't try to swing and shoot him, there is another bird straight in front and he's gonna walk straight into where you are aiming.  Well I wait and nothing happens.  Then I hear all three gobble again except this time all three are behind me.  I call, they respond further away, they keep gobbling to my call but are further and further away each time.  I blew it, I had one dead to rights at 10 yards but didn't swing and take a shot.

The next bird was a field bird that we had been seeing with some hens in this little field in the afternoons.  So one afternoon I go and set up in the back on the side just before the corner, so I could see the whole back third of the field.  I like to hunt with my gun butt in a strap cradle on my vest and the barrel resting on a shooting stick so that it is up and ready all the time.  I had placed a hen and jake decoy out in front of me about 25 yards from where I was in the woods, with the jake being closest to the back so if the tom stepped out it would appear that the jake was cutting the hen off.  I had been there a little while and would call about every 15 minutes but wasn't hearing anything.  Then it happened I see the tom step out of the back corner to my left just 40 yards away and starts walking to my decoys.  I think this is perfect my gun is pointed just to the left of the jake right where he is walking I'm not gonna have to move or anything, this bird is as good as dead.  Well the bird made it about 10 more steps before he see's something, I don't know what, I haven't moved, much less probably even taken a breath.  Next thing I know he is hauling tail just as fast as he can run down the field away from me.  I was completely dumbfounded, and just sat there in pure disbelief at what just transpired.  I could have shot that turkey from the moment he stepped out till right before he took off but I just knew he was going to walk right into my line of fire.

My lesson going forward from these two situations, both with stud longbeards, is that if a good opportunity presents itself, TAKE IT, don't wait on something better because lord knows things don't always go like you expect them to.

[Rapscallion Vermilion]

After hunting Merriam's for a few years in New Mexico and still very much a beginner with lots of mistakes to make, I made my first out of state turkey hunting trip back to the home grounds of my youth in the Berkshires of Massachusetts with hopes of my first Eastern.  I'd be hunting with a buddy of 40 years and a borrowed gun, his Dad's, and one that I wouldn't have a chance to pattern before the first hunt. 

On the first morning out, I set up on the edge of a big cut field that rippled down a long slope and tucked myself up against a stone wall to wait for first light.  There was a bit of fog that morning and the dark grey outlines of the tall roost pines at the upper end of the field were just visible.  It wasn't a very long wait before two gobblers surprised me by pitching down from those tall white pines into the upper end of the field.  They hadn't gobbled once. 

But there was one bird gobbling somewhere up on the hardwood slope directly across the field from me, a good 200 yards away.  He seemed to like the sound of my trumpet and after a bit of time and a solid dozen gobbles he was in the open on the other side of the field but never more than a couple of feet from the edge and way out of range.  I distinctly remember his coppery sheen as he gobbled several times in full view.  Apparently disgusted by the lack of a visible hen, he gobbled once more, turned around, entered the woods, and went quiet.  The two gobblers that had shown up earlier were long gone, never having gobbled. 

I spent the next couple of hours moving a little bit, setting up, and calling off and on.  As I got close to the top end of the field, I finally struck a gobbler off the field in the hollow of a small creek that paralleled the long edge of the field.  After working that gobbler for a while, I thought I had worked him to about 50 yards, but the woods were thick enough that he'd have to cut that in half to have any hope of a shot.  Confident that I'm close to getting my first Eastern, I hear this sound coming from back over my right shoulder, from the direction I started that morning and somewhere out in the field  - TOCK - TOCK - TOCK ... non stop, loud, like big hollow wood blocks banging, and getting closer.  A really loud angry sound.  The sound is moving up the field and I can't see the source. I honestly had no idea what it was.  It certainly didn't sound like any turkey sound I'd ever heard on a recording. I realize that whatever it is, it's in the dip of one of those waves in the meadow.   At about 40 yards, and angling away, the head, and then the body of this magnificent coppery gobbler with a thick foot long beard emerges from the dip.  I lacked the confidence in the borrowed gun and its pattern to even think about taking a shot and was still hopeful that I could somehow turn him my way. 

He walked another ten yards up the slope, turned to face the exact location of the tom I'd been working, and hammered out a thunderous pissed-off woods rattling gobble, turned uphill and slowly walked off the upper end of the field without another sound.  Awestruck, dumbstruck, whatever, I just sat there for a long time taking it all in. The gobbler I had been working never gobbled again.

[eggshell]

After reading a lot of stories I have noticed one behavior of hunters that I feel often gives you away. We sit and stare at birds! I have an exercise for you to try.....get a buddy all dressed up in camo and sit him at a tree. Tell him not to move but watch every move you make. Then walk in on him like an old gobbler and watch him closely. You know right where he is and so does an old gobbler, from your calling. You will be amazed at how much movement you see in him, enough to take notice of. Even if he sits like a statue, his eyes will move and you will see him blink a hundred times once you get close enough. Now if someone comes into your yard and sits anything down that doesn't belong you notice, if it is benign you may walk on, but if any part of it is suspicious you are going to check it out. Old tough gobblers have lived because they have learned to be Leary of things that don't fit. Add the blinking and you are getting noticed, it may not alarm him, but he's learned to give such things a wide birth. So even when you think you are not being seen, maybe you are. I will not stare old gobblers all the way in, I avert my eyes and only move when he can't see. On most gobblers you don't have to hide all that much, but if I am after old slick I dig into the brush and I certainly don't stare at him. The other thing is Knock off on the calling, which chick gets more attention in a bar...the coy sexy one or the loud mouthed bitch?