The gobblers that got away from you....

[northms]

Before each season I usually make a post about the ghost of gobblers past that have given us the slip. I've written about a bird a decade ago I never could kill named Ol' Tubby that lived out his full days. I like reading about the gobblers that have given other members the slip also.

Last year I had two brother gobblers that always ran together. Without fail, they were always together and that's how I could tell them apart from others. Each had monster spurs and one was exceptional class with his spurs. I had one good encounter with them about 2pm in a big, big field one afternoon and when they popped out I was already starting up the grill--they had other plans though.

I had a jake and hen sitting out and they walked 600 yards across this field occasionally looking back to me and the decoys but they seemed like they had an appointment somewhere and just kept walking. I know they didn't see me. No explanation for it. They didn't have hens either.

I'll be on the lookout for them again this year to see if they're around.

What you got?

[bchilde]

I got one that will haunt me for the rest of my life. It was me, my brother, Dad and my nephew and we   were mushroom hunting. I heard a bird gobble so I quietly got everyone's attention and we all sat down. Seemed like an hour as it always does and here he comes. Bird came in on a string gobbling and strutting I got my nephew right beside me dad and my brother are to the left of us. I MISSED in front of everyone lol. Bird got away and still lives in my dreams. I made a awesome memory with my whole family. Although birdless It's a hunt I won't ever forget. 

[GobbleNut]

Just last year I had one of those regretful experiences with what was probably the best Merriam's gobbler I would have taken in over fifty years of chasing them. 

I was with a less-experienced hunter who had already taken his bird.  We struck a gobbler late-morning in a draw we were walking.  He answered a call from about 300 yards up the draw.  We moved a short ways toward him to a spot I thought was perfect and I told my buddy to get back behind me about thirty yards and do the calling. 

His calling was great, and the gobbler started steadily towards us gobbling closer with every call my buddy was making.  I had set up so that I had a screen of brush in front of me about fifteen yards in line with the direction the gobbler was approaching.  I would be able to see through the brush enough to see the gobbler approaching and all he had to do was clear the brush on either side and he would be a chip-shot away at about 15 yards.

The gobbler was on a bee-line to the calling and pretty soon I saw him coming about seventy five yards on the back side of the brush.  The first thing I thought was,..."holy sh*t, that gobbler has the best beard I have ever seen on a Merriam's turkey".  Merriam's birds are not generally noted for their beards, but this one was a hoss,...thick and had to be a foot long. 

Unfortunately, my buddy's lack of experience in knowing when to shut down the calling came into play.  The gobbler kept marching steadily towards his demise, and as he got closer, I started thinking to myself,..."Okay, Steve (my buddy), stop calling, he's duped and is gonna come right to me". 

Steve apparently couldn't read my mind,...and just as apparently thought it was cool that the gobbler was gobbling at every sound he made.  The bird finally got right behind the brush pile in front of me,...as I sat there thinking,..."stop calling, stop calling, stop calling".

However, by that time I was convinced that this gobbler was on a suicide mission and was just going to step out in the open and let me summarily dispatch him,...which would have been the case had I known what was about to transpire.  The gobbler came to the edge of the brush pile like he was going to waltz into the open, stuck his head out just far enough to see around the brush and down the lane where my buddy was busily trying to start a fire with his box call.

I was on the bird's head, and in hindsight should have just pulled the trigger then and there,... but I hesitated, thinking he is going to walk right out in the open. But, before I could say "gotcha" the gobbler pulled his head back and immediately ducked back in behind the brush and started to put 'er in high gear going back the other direction.

I frantically looked for an opening in the brush to try to salvage the moment. but it was too late.  The Merriam's gobbler of a lifetime was gone,...but he is etched in my memory forever...

[eggshell]

I've had a few over the years that seemed to get the best of me for a couple seasons, but sooner or later I usually kill them. It's all about persistence. Of course I have a bunch of private land with exclusive rights, so I can let a bird ride until he is ready. On public land it rarely works out. I used to get vendettas against birds, but anymore if a bird is henned up or just acting contrary I simply go look for another gobbler. In my old age I'd rather have the fun of  a bird that works well than to hunt one ornery old bird exclusively.

[MISSISSIPPI Double beard]

One I won't forget is a gob I called roadrunner. Never did get him. An old man that hunted from his truck probably did.

[Kylongspur88]

In 2007 I hunted a bird for 3 days straight. On the last day I that evening I got him within 20 yards in some really thick stuff with no shot. He walked and lived. No one got him that year. He was a slick bird. Not very vocal and stayed in thick woods. He had a really long pencil thin beard. Smart sucker.

[Gooserbat]

I can think of a few.  They came in hard right, saw something they didn't like at 55 yards, or a couple times I just plain missed. 

[Number17]

I've had lots and lots of birds that decided not to die for whatever reason, but one sticks out in particular.

He was a field strutter that was always with hens and almost always out in the middle of a large field. He wouldn't gobble at anything, and wouldn't budge from those hens no matter what you tried.
I sat up on a pinch point in the field one morning and gave a few calls. Soon his hens started to gather around me, but he was nowhere to be found and the group of hens fed off to my left.
I was glassing the edge of the woods all around and suddenly spotted a big red head with a long beard in a square block of woods to my right.
The hens were still visible and feeding contently to my left. It should have been game over, lights out, all she wrote for that big boy.........but he just stood there motionless watching from the edge of the timber.
If that bird didn't stand there for a half hour he wasn't there for a minute. I'm still totally befuddled as to why he didn't come into the field and to his hens. He finally ducked back into the woods and walked away down a logging road.

I would say there is a 99.9% chance that he didn't see me, but that's the only thing I can phathom. He and I had a half hour staring contest and something just wasn't right?

[Sir-diealot]

For me it was my first day out turkey hunting ever. I was hunting a friends land that showed signs of turkey only had one small ceder tree. I set up on that tree and when I heard turkey talk in the early morning hours I started to call lightly. Shortly I got a reply from a gobbler I am guessing 300 yards away or more and started a conversation with him.

The only problem is he was coming in from behind me and the way this ceder tree was set up it worked on the clover field side but the other side of the tree dropped down very sharply into very loamy soil so there was no way to re-position myself I thought at the time.

So with no way to adjust on the tree I just hoped he would go to my hen decoy in the clover field. He came from quite a way and was gobbling every time I called, I will be honest I got so stoked up hearing him coming in that I nearly puked out of excitement!

So all of a sudden this turkey shut up, I tried calling but was getting no reply, that is when I made a stupid rookie move and looked over my shoulder, there he was about 30 yards over my left shoulder. We saw each other at the same time and he was gone and I felt like a fool because I had read never to do that but I did it anyway. Case lived and learn, I always did learn things the hard way.

It retrospect I wish I had gotten up and crawled into the clover field and gone prone when he was further out. Even though I did not get him this and 2 other close calls have kept me wanting to turkey hunt around 17 years. I still have yet to get one.

[falltoms]

Some of the tough ones you don't kill are the ones you remember the most

[Cut N Run]

About 10 years ago, I knew where a big gobbler liked to roost along the southeast side of my old lease.  I'd seen that bird a couple of times through binoculars along a power line cut up near the ridge. I left him alone because one of my best friends was coming in from Albuquerque to hunt with me for a few days and I wanted him to tag a boss bird as his first eastern.  I'd found a log pile just a few yards off the fire lane fairly close to the same place I saw the gobbler cross the power line cut. We got there extra early and I hiked my buddy back to the log pile, then I eased back down the fire lane towards the front side of the lease. The wind was from the west, which is odd for Spring in these parts.  About the time we expected to hear gobbling, we started to smell smoke.  The land owner had started burning underbrush in a controlled burn on the west side of the property and nothing gobbled. It turns out a west wind is ideal for a controlled burn.  We never saw the first turkey and left when the smoke got thick and the fire got too close.

The next day, we hunted another farm in a different county and after seeing one hen by herself, a severe downpour blew in a couple hours after dawn, which continued for the rest of the day.  My buddy had to head home, so I went back to the lease a day later hoping to get a crack at that big bird. I made it up to the log pile in the dark without getting busted and heard gobbles from the big bird when it got light. I called to him once he hit the ground and got a few courtesy gobbles back, but he didn't seem too interested.  About an hour later, a hen came down the fire lane from the east, walked from left to right, then saw something she didn't like and walked back past me at 8 yards back the direction from which she'd come. A few minutes later, I saw movement to my left again & I figured the hen was coming back. About the time she cleared a few limbs off the end of the log pile, I suddenly realized that "she" had a big old beard, a red head, and daggers for spurs.  It was that stud gobbler instead of the hen.  In a total rookie move, I tried to move the gun up and get off a shot as he was standing 8 or 9 yards in front of me.  He kicked it into high gear to put distance between us in a flash.  I shot once, but only managed to blast the bark off a loblolly pine the gobbler was dashing off behind.  It was the last week of the season and I never got the chance to hunt him again.  I lost the lease and that was that. The memory of him hauling @$$ as the bark exploded off the tree still haunts me.  He was also the last turkey I missed and the only one I ever missed with my SBE II.

Jim

[Izzyjoe]

About my third season hunting, I had been after this bird for several days. In the morning he'd be at the of the mountain, and after fly down he'd go straight down the mountain. So I'd circle around about half way down, and he'd be back at the top. We played this game for a couple days, and I decided to play dirty. I roosted him that evening, and the next morning, which was my last day off I sat half way up the mountain as close as I dare to get to him. But the area I was in was nothing but spindly little scrub trees, and I was burnin daylight, so I just laid down facing his direction, and I'll be darned if he didn't fly down and walk 50yds to my right, I mean 90 degrees to my right. He never knew I was there, but you can't move to well when your laying flat out. So I let him go down a few yards and tried to slowly to turn for a shot, but he was headed down like always before. I softly yelped a few times, and he gobbled, but he was with real hens by that time, and there was no way he was coming back up. So I just waited for him to come back up later when he was done, but he never made another sound. So I slipped out about noon, and figured I'd come back in a couple day which was Saturday. Well low and behold Saturday morning there was a truck in the area I had been hunting, and I got there early. So I just hunted about a hundred yards up the road so I could listen if he shot. And sure enough he killed that bird not long after daylight. So I waited at his truck, I was about half pissed of, but I had to see this gobbler that caused me so much misery. So when he walked out i introduced myself, and explained that I had driven nuts by this bird for several days, and the guy laughed, and said he did the same thing to him the previous year. So I congratulated him and shook his hand, and said I'm glad you got him, cause that bird almost drove me to drinking! I learned a few things that season, happiness ain't always when you get to pull the trigger. Win some, lose some!

[Sir-diealot]

Some of the tough ones you don't kill are the ones you remember the most

That way in a lot of things in life, minus the killing part in most of them.

[chcltlabz]

Two stick in my mind.  The first was from last year.  Gobbling has waned quite a bit in one area I hunt.  I think its increased hunting pressure and a lot of coyotes.  One Friday I got on a hard gobbling bird on the roost.  It was a dream scenario, because he was gobbling so hard on his own I was able to move in and set up without ever having to so much as owl hoot.  He flew down and continued to hammer away, so I was almost certain he was still alone, and this bird had a monster gobble.  Every gobble sounded like a gun going off.  In textbook fashion, he stormed right in to 25 yards and stepped into the open for a chip shot.  I touched one off and thought I saw him go down.  Then I saw a bird running off and didn't take a follow up shot.  You guessed it, no bird and no sign of a hit.  I'm certain it was a clean miss, because he started gobbling a few minutes later but wouldn't budge.  I confirmed my pattern that night and somehow was a foot high and left with only the edge of my pattern anywhere close at 40, so at 25 I'm sure it was a clean miss.

The other bird was from years ago.  I had a bird answering well and coming.  Great spot that was sparsely thick enough for him to not get a good look around and get spooky, and I wouldn't be in view of him until he was in range.  Just out of sight, he went silent and I knew he was sneaking in so I kept a good eye out for him.  Next sound I heard was a single putt and a quick flash of a head leaving in a hurry.  That bird sticks out in my mind because I don't miss seeing birds appear often, but he got me good.

[tha bugman]

One I called Side Swipe....back and forth he would go out of range out of sight (should have named his Teaser), then for some reason one morning he was quiet.  At this point I thought someone had slipped in and killed him after I had left, until I peaked over a ridge and there he was strutting down in the bottom not saying a word.  Hatched a plan to sit it out and just wait on him the next morning, just up the ridge from his strut zone.  Got in early blinded up and waited, no calling no nothing. Four hours later full roll gobble to my left as he topped the ridge and headed toward the bottom.  I had a couple of decoys out front never said a word. He continues to walk past.  I thought, well this is it, I better try something or he is going to slide by me.  I let out a few soft yelps on my mouth call.  Those soft yelps turned into the most god aweful imitation of a bobcat making love to a yellow jacket nest.  It was then to my dismay that I realized that the latex had separated from the frame.  Well Side Swipe decided that he would be better served in the next county as he hit a near by pine thicket, never to be heard from again.

This is just one of many turkey hunting memories that I have tried to bury deep in my mind, as recollection of such does nothing but result in a series of empty hand gestures and completely wasted oxygen uttering swear words under my breath.