Yesterday was dead quiet except for one short time period where a bird hammered up in the woods while a strutter was out in a field. The past week or two have been especially quiet and it's gotten frustrating. I haven't even called one in that came quiet, it's just been freakin silent and no birds want to cooperate.
Now this place I hunted is loaded with turkeys, but they still made me work for them. The strutter had 2 hens when I found him, but they left and went different ways. One of them came to check where my calls came from, and she passed me by 10 feet away. Something must have got her cause she was missing a lot of feathers.
The tom stayed up in the shade, trying to drum one of the hens back. Of course I wouldn't show up, and he got bored and gobbled once and turned and started walking away.
I made a big loop and set up a couple times and called and waited a while. The woods had gone dead again...
At this point it was the heat of the day and I was dehydrated and didn't think it was wise to hunt till sunset without water. So I walked maybe a mile back to my truck and got some water.
Tried to sneak on a boss tom that has dominion over one end of the property. He's spooky as heck and I never got a chance. So I went back toward the back where the other birds had been.
When I got back to the field, there were several birds out there. I snuck around and ended up crawling a ways till I could set up for an ambush if needed.
Knowing there were hens, I figured I'd wait and see where they went before trying to call. I saw one hen headed my way, so I sat tight in the blowdown and got ready.
The first longbeard to pass by me got the shot, but then the hens started yelping and I heard drumming again.
The main strutter had hung behind, the hens went to look at my dead bird, then they went back to the other tom. One of the hens set down and the tom bred her while I had the camera going.
Once their deed was done, I walked out and ran em off and got my bird. Was pretty surprised to find he had 3 beards. Typical spurs of a 2 year old and 20 lbs 11 oz. very happy with him.
Got some of the best turkey footage all year, it worked out perfect. Hope you enjoy it because I sure did.
Video
http://youtu.be/xr1BzErH_mM
Good luck to those of you still out there chasing another one.
Sent from the talk of tap
