This will be my second season hunting turkeys. Last year I walked away with 3 major lessons. One is that becoming a good caller is important. The second is having good woodsmanship skills. And the most important is putting in a lot of work early by scouting before opening day.
Last year I spent 3 weeks scouting a couple of times a week. I had a good idea where to find the birds and was able to get on the birds by day 2. I had 3 kills 15 days into the season and ended up with my 5th and final tag 5 days before the end of the season. First season, 5 kills (4 with a shotgun and one with a bow), and the big one was 20 lbs, 10" beard, and 1 1/8' spurs.
This year I have more properties to hunt so I have begun scouting. On the first day of scouting, we found quite a few tracks. And then we saw "IT".
My buddy named him Thunderbird. But my favorite comment was, "That's not a turkey. Its a Pterodactyl!"
This bird has consistently left us a lot of fresh sign on a weekly basis. I don't doubt he will be on the ground in the first week of this season. Actual sightings last year reported that his beard drags the ground! I'm ready now!
