huntnteen

probley my favorite hunt was my brother-in-laws first turkey, we set up and i was there to do the calling(but i did have my gun) we set up just after daylight we set up on the edge of this feild that almost always holds a turkey or a dozen, well we set up with two deacs and me handleing the box call but nothings going on, well i end up falling into a light sleep that i come out of about every 5 minutes to look for birds, after a half hour nap(so 3 hours on this feild) i decide i want to stand for a while so i start to give up when i catch movement 200 yards across the feild, i stay on my knees and hit the call, all three gobble and start to strut, i hit the call in response to the birds and they all come at a full run and duck right under a fence, it took me two minutes to get these birds in range but i cant put a beard on ANY of them, i have my hand next to my leg so i can tap the call to keep these three in range and when i FINALLY see beard on ALL of them they see my hand move when i do a single yelp, they all turn and start to walk away when i whisper "shoot one!" before i got the word 'one' out of my mouth BANG and i see the biggest turkey drop dead, the other birds are runnin and im not shooting a gun im quite used to so i up and miss. the bird wasnt the biggest one out there but it weighed 22lbs and had a 4"beard that was blonde andfragile at the endwhich makes me think it should have had a much bigger beard, the bird also had 1 1/2" spurs so it wasnt a young one

Indiana SmokePole

I have Killed alot of birds in my 30yrs of Turky hunting But I guess my most memberal would be a hunt that took place 5yrs ago I was working 2 birds comming in to the front of me . The tree I was set up aginst was loaded with some type of birds that was so noise that I could barly hear the Toms when they Gobbled, all of a sudden the birds in the trees left so I made a Call to see were the gobblers were all of a sudden I heard some thing running in behind me and then the dredded sound of CHut VERRRRR and wings dragging the leaves a tom had come running into me from staight behind me he was just on the back side of the tree I was set up aginst. there I sat Slate call and stiker in hand gun accross my lap and a Tomno more than 3ft behind me All at once I could here him comming around the tree and so I held my breath and closed my eyes as he came Strutting around the tree he strutted up right aginst my arm as he came around he spotted my hen jake decoys and as he started twords them he stepped up on my leg then hedded straight for the decoys in full strut directly away from me so when I thought he was 10 or 15 yds away i opened one eye slid my call into my lap picked up my gun as he was in full strut his fan had me coverd from his headas I shoulderd my gun at this time he was about 20yds from me and about 6 yds from the decoys all of a sudden he stoped and started stompping his foot at the decoys kinda looked like one of my Roosters, as i click the safty off my 11-87 he heard it dropped his tail raised that head and well you know what the end result was I went home with a 23LB 11" beard & 1.5" spurred limbhangger Most excitting hunt I've ever had AWSOME !

Indiana SmokePole
Ron

Turkey Fife

That's a Good Story! I have never had one THAT close and I don't want to. I don't think the ticker could take it!

It would have been my luck, it would have been a Bear!

TF

Indiana SmokePole

I tell you what alot of pepole will not belive this story but it is very true!
My heart was pounding so hard that I thought the old tom would hear it and be spooked away , when I herd something running in behind me I thought Please just let it be a deer , then Chut Verrrrr . WOW

Indiana SmokePole
Ron

FLboy77

Thats the best turkey story ive every heard!!!

So cool how he got so close and you didnt spook him!! Now thats being STILL!!

Awsome story!!

SwampCollie

Wow.... thats all I can say.... wow. I had a deer jumped by some hounds come barreling through the trail I was posted on and pile over my camo lawn chair while I was up stretching and had taken three or four steps away... that was lucky timing.. and as the deer struggled to get up from its trip... I shot it...

I have been turkey hunting and had squirrels climb down trees and hit my shoulder (thats when I jump) and even had a song bird fly in to my ground blind... but I've never had a turkey THAT close.


I'd say that my most exciting hunt wasn't acctually a turkey hunt, but I will share my favorite turkey hunt:

The one that ranks at the top of the heap was my first bird. I know thats the case for just about everyone... but mine was different. I started turkey hunting when I was 8... and Dad would follow me, but I was the boss. I did all the calling, I said when we moved, where we went and everything. I allowed no collaboration, and I was a real stubborn little sh*t about it. Dad didn't care, he was happy to be out in the spring woods, and he always tagged out while I was laboring in school during the week. Saturday mornings were for me to fumble around the woods scaring things before baseball in the afternoons.

At age 11, I was cut loose on my own. We divided the property up, and had no-cross areas. My Dad was strict with me when it came to hunting and safety, and I had been proving I was mature enough to handle it since I was a young boy. I started hunting completely on my own when I hit 16 and started driving. At this point I had 8 springs under my belt, and still had yet to pull the trigger. But I was starting to mature, I was starting to realize mistakes I had made, remember certain situations and why I had failed, what had gone wrong...

All of this paid off on April 19, 2001, which ironically was also my 18th birthday. Dad and I were hunting together (thought apart from each other) a friend's farm in southern VA. I took the swamp side, and dad took the main fields, cutover side. I had two large fields to hunt, but I remembered from past years birds roosting along a creek that ran along a cutover and back behind a field. I owl hooted and got a bird to respond from the back end of a field corner, and I knew he was down on the creek and I could get to the corner of that field without being spotted. I practically ran back there. It was still very dark out.. just a bit of grey in the sky, I remember exactly where I was standing when that bird sounded off. I went to the corner of a field, and found a spot that looked like a turkey would enter the field in. There was some very very thick spots all behind me and in several other places along that field (which was well over 800 yards long and 300 yards wide just in that section). I figured that he'd almost have to come out right there. I put a hen decoy (that I got for my 14th birthday and still carry.. now with several pellet holes in it) out in front of me.

The day before, my Godfather had given me a birthday present, an HS Lil' Deuce II that he had Tom Stucky sign for me the previous summer. I still have that call, and its among my most prized possessions, just for the personal history with it. That was the first non-mouth call I had ever used, and I sounded pretty bad with it. But no matter, my godfather had killed dozens of turkeys and he said it was a sweet call, so to me at that point, there was no such thing as any other call except the Old Boss Hen in my mouth.

I set up on that turkey and waited. He continued to gobble on the roost, and at about 6:45 I made a tree call with my mouth call. He gobbled back. A few minutes later I let out another. He gobbled back. At about 7:00, I made a flydown cackle (I tended to over do it back then) and he gobbled some more. At 7:15 I made the first string of yelps on my new call, and he double gobbled back.. a minute or so later I yelped again and he gobbled again... I was smart enough at that point to lay off. The bird kept gobbling, but he was getting farther away it seemed.... not again!

7:42 I heard a shot from across the other cutover... no doubt.. here we go again. Dad had taken several birds while I bumbled around over the years... looks like this birthday would be more of the same.

At about 8:15 I made an agressive string of yelps and cut hard on my mouth call and seemingly the same bird gobbled from back behind me! There was hope! I cut hard twice more and yelped I could tell he had turned and was coming. I had the gun on my shoulder and I was shaking like I was freezing, although it was quite mild that day. What seemed like an hour, but was really just about ten minutes later the bird gobbled again much closer. I reached down and raked the leaves and purred on my new slate and he gobbled again. I put the call down and didn't make another sound. A minute or so later, I heard the bird walking behind me. There was a wall of thorns and blackberrys that I knew he wouldn't go through, which is why I set up where I did. He crossed behind me from my right to left... in the direction of the corner and toward where I thought he may enter. He gobbled twice more from what sounded like inside my game bag on my vest. Every hair on my body stood up on end.

The image will always be burned into my memory: He seemed bigger than a deer as he glided out of that opening, exactly where I wanted him, he instantly saw my decoy and went into strutt. It was actually the first time I ever heard a turkey spit/drum and from where I was the only thing I'd ever heard that was louder was the noise my heart beat was making in my ears. I snapped the safety off and made what must have sounded like a wet fart noise on the mouth call; an attempt at a putt to bring the bird out of strutt. It worked at anyrate and the old bird raised his head and put all his feathers down and posed like the bird on the bourbon bottle. It was a sight I'll never forget as long as I live.

The gun roared and 36 steps away in a pile of glorious feathers, 10 years of heartache and failure came to an end. I couldn't get to him fast enough. I didn't have my hand on the pump of my 870, and on the shot it flew back and hit me in the knee so hard it made my leg go numb, that coupled with sitting stock still for two hours had put both my legs to sleep and as I rose I tripped and fell on my face in the freshly plowed bean field. Stumbling like a drunk, I made the 36 steps and for the first time placed a foot on the head of the flapping, dieing turkey. I don't remember doing it, but Dad said that I let out a yell so loud that even his bird hunting blasted ear drums heard it over 700 yards distant across the cutover that divided us.

I noticed as I cut a tag out of my license to affix to the birds leg that I was crying. Not a cry like I had just won the super bowl, but more like a cry that I had just been given a very wonderful gift and was truly touched and overwhelmed emotionally. I'm not much of a crier. Honestly save almost losing Dad to a heart attack, having my swamp collie go UA on me for 72 hours and then getting him back through a stroke of luck, and watching him make his first retreive in a live duck hunting situation after training him myself, that was the only time I cried from my 18th birthday until now. I went to The Citadel the next fall, and even all the blood and sweat and friendships I made there never did evoke a tear from me... not even when I got my ring. I've got my eye on a young lass though, and I suspect when I hit a knee and we hit the alter I'll lose a little water too. But I digress.

That was the first twenty-pound victory walk I ever took. I have taken exactly thirty more in the 7 years since, and in 8 different states counting my own. Every turkey since has seemed heavier to me, but ironically, no turkey since has been as heavy. That bird, my very first one, weighted 23lbs 4oz wore a thick 10 1/2" beard and sported matching 1 5/8" spurs; a net NWTF score of 76 3/4. Had I entered that turkey, there is a very good chance he would have taken the state contest that year, or at least placed highly.

Dad was waiting at the truck for me when I walked up. He was shocked at how huge the bird was, he figured I'd probably popped a jake or something. I told him I was committed to longbeards, and one had finally slipped up. I asked Pop if it was he that had shot, and he confessed it was. So with a halfway snicker I questioned where his bird was. Its the only time I can remember that my Dad shooting a jake. While I personally don't see anything wrong with it, Dad and I just don't shoot jakes, nor do we shoot young bucks. Just the way he is and subsequently the way I am.

I had to ask why... especially at 7:42 in the morning? What he said is another one of those magic things I'll never forget. He told me that I'd been after these birds for so long, and I had finally in his eyes grown into a mature adult, that he knew I'd finally have the patience to sit still, not over call and wait a bird out. He went on to say that he'd prayed the night before for a turkey for me and knew that when we parted ways on that crisp April morning, 18 years almost to the minute (I was hatched at 5:40am) after he finally got what he wanted in life (a child) that God would grant him another wish. Seeing that jake, he knew it was an opportunity for us to take turkeys on the same morning, which was something he had been hoping for as long as I'd just been hoping to get one. It was at the time, and still is to this day the best gift I've ever been given, birthday, Christmas or whatever.

My best friend Kevin took this picture, (which is the only one I have on the internet, and it was scanned in several years ago... and is mirror backwards and kinda small). Barely in the side you can see a third turkey. Kevin, my best friend since 5th grade, shot that turkey this same morning in the opposite end of the state. His bird scored right at 73 1/4, and is still the biggest turkey he has ever killed. His bird had 1 1/2" spurs, weighed 21lbs 8oz and wore an 11" rope. Dads bird had a 5" beard, 1/2" nubs and weighed right at 14#! But he got his wish!

Turkey Fife

Thats a good story! You need to publish it somewhere in a magizine

TF

Indiana SmokePole

Thanks Fellers I have enjoyed reading all your posted Storys!!!!!

Best of Luck to Every one this SEASON AND BE SAFE

Indiana SP
Ron

alinla

mine was when my 10 year old son killed his first one last year 1 1/2 and 1 5/8 inch spurs 11 1/2 inch beard and weighed 22 .6 pounds