Iowa Gobbles Down

[oakraidia]

This year my 7yo son wanted to join me for the first time, but I went out alone the first day of second season since there was 4 fresh inches of snow and I knew it'd get muddy and uncomfortable when the snow melted. Right at sunrise I had 2 toms skirt around me 50 yards away at the edge of the timber and head to an open field on the neighboring property. I tried calling to them, but they had no interest. I moved around a bit, but I didn't hear or see anything by 11:00 and decided to set up a ground blind for my son to join the next day and be comfortable. I decided to sit in the blind for a bit and at 1:30 2 toms appeared 50 yards away, but in the brush. They gobbled their heads off to my calls, but wouldn't come out of the brush...I'm guessing because I had a full strut decoy with the 2 hens and they weren't looking for a fight. For 1.5 hours they strutted around 30-50 yards away, but wouldn't make those final 2 steps past the brush to give me a shot. I gave it 30 minutes after they left before I moved the blind a bit and got out of there.
Saturday I brought the boy out and decided to use a lone hen, I heard 1 gobble on the roost in the distance, but it was uneventful until 8:30. That's when I heard a distant gobble to the SW. 20 minutes later I caught a glimpse of a turkey behind us to the SW in the distance before it disappeared behind a brush pile. I made a few cuts, no response. I decided I'd look SE to the field behind my son's window, turned my head before getting up and there was a tom 15 yards right outside his window at full strut. Luckily he was facing away and his tail fan blocked his view of me moving. My son was grinning from ear to ear when he saw that tom strutting around. I whispered to him to put his hearing protection on, but he couldn't find them (I'd already picked them up no less than 5 times). So I gave him mine and told him to get ready. It took a few minutes for for that tom to get away from my decoy and give me a clear shot. That was my heaviest bird to date at 27.5 lbs, 10" beard, spurs 3/4" and 1". My son says he's ready for season 4 now. Hopefully he'll bring me some more good luck!

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[notsure]

The upper Midwest has the largest birds in the country bar none. That is one very big turkey! Congratulations!

[Sir-diealot]

Great story and picture, congratulations.

[Chris O]

Nice job you had way more luck than I did Friday

[Greg Massey]

Making memories , congrats ..

[1iagobblergetter]

Way 2 go.. Buy him a license. 

[NightHawk24]

Great story! Congratulations!

[kyturkeyhunter4]

Congratulations

[Yoteduster]

Congrats on a really nice bird

[Tom007]

Fannntastic........

[JeffC]

Congrats,  great picture

[bigriverbum]

Awesome!

So happy he got to be there with you

[Turkeyman]

Nice. Get the kids involved.

[Muzzy61]

Congrats, that's good one for sure.

[chadly]

That is a huge bird.  Congrats.  Cool your son was there.