For all you Turkey Lovers out there!

My turkey hunt as I recall it......... The day is April 18, 2009, the weather cold and partly overcast. The stars are still out when the adventure started, so that tells you how early it is.

First though we will take a detour back to the night before for some quick comedic relief, well I'd say it is anyway. It's around 6 or so the night before and some buddies of mine got together for pizza, to hang out, and speak hunt'n. We talked for a bit and then went our separate ways. My brother-in-law and I then headed to the hunting grounds to do a little owl hooting. So we walked down to the bottom grounds of the property, and proceeded to give the old hoot call a good, "will work for fooooood! and a will work for yooooou!", call a couple times then stopped and listened. All we heard sounding off was my brother-in-law's stomach and it was a gobblin! All of a sudden there I am standing there in the dark by myself, and he's in a dead sprint to the middle of the woods to take care of business before he lost it. (He made it for all those wondering). Well now that he had pulled himself back together, we tried the calling again and the birds erupted in the distance. They were roosted in the Turkey Bowl as we call it on the property we hunt, so we left that night in full confidence of getting us our bird the next morning. As always though before the big hunt, I can't sleep so the night seemed to drag on forever!

... Any way as I was saying it was a BRISK! morning as we found ourselves tip toeing through the woods with loads of gear, more than we probably needed, we made it to the spot where the birds were roosting the night before. We set up in some dead falls that had been previously piled earlier in the year which gave us excellent coverage to a small clearing in the timber. The birds were known to drop in early morning, which led to a corn field. So we got all our gear situated and the decoys unpacked and placed. We had a picture book set up with the decoys about 25 yds in front of us. As the sun started to break and the hens started to drop in on us, I said lets get the camera ready. But as it goes we forget the stink'n video camera! (This year that won't happen so check back for video footage of this year's hunt.) Well now the sun was half way up the horizon and the hens started churpin, the jacks started dropping in, but as any turkey hunter we didn't start drooling till the Toms started Gobblin! Sure as the sun though the Jakes started to push the hens out into the corn and off our spread, so as it goes the Toms dropped into the corn out of reach. So my brother-n-law pulled out his bag of gizmo's and gadgets and started calling. The mouth call was first, all that did was push them farther. Then came the box, then a stone, then a tube, and nothing was working which was puzzling to the both of us. Here we are with a picture book set up and all the birds are out of reach fanning and strutting their stuff at 350 yrds across the corn. Just then a hen popped out of the woods close, so my brother-in-law gave it one last hooray and tried a gobble call he'd been working on. I whispered back to him and said, better make it loud cause those birds are along ways away, and their not going to hear it! So as he's letting the gobble fly, two monster Toms gave us a look and started their charge. The two were responding to his gobble like nothing I had seen before. Heck, those birds were almost in a dead sprint by the time they got to us. So excited as can be that we finally got some action again, I raised my Benelli turkey gun and ended up with the smaller of the two. It was a perfect 15 yard shot!

The bird weighed in at 22lbs 11oz., had 1.25" spurs, and a 10 3/4 inch beard, an exceptional bird. His big brother is still out there and has been spotted a few times this past deer hunting season. So hopefully we can get him on video for you all this year.