New York Bird Down

[njdevilsb]

During pre season scouting, my dad and I had only seen 1 hen up until last Friday.  We spotted 7 hens and one longbeard out there Friday evening.  They returned Sunday and Monday night as well, and the opener was Tuesday.

Tuesday morning we setup in an area that we might not have picked normally since it was a little ways away from where they roosted the night before, but there were some thicker trees to try and shield us from the rain that greeted us.  We did some soft calling once we figured it was close to fly down time and nothing.  Finally a hen did one series of yelps.  About 5 minutes after that, we heard him gobble.  We could tell he had made his way out to the field already, but it's got a few rolling hills and we couldn't see him.  We called and he answered a few times, and then suddenly he shut right up and we never heard another peep out of him.  We figured the hens finally pitched down and took him away.

Last night, we went back out and sure enough, they were back out and they went and roosted in the same exact area as the day before.  We watched them walk in a logging road and it was getting pretty dark, so we knew they wouldn't be far in there.

This morning, I setup about 15 yards inside of that logging road, figuring they would hit that road again and come out to the field.  My dad setup on the field edge just in case they snuck around on us, and he had planned on filming me shooting him if everything worked out like we wanted.  We placed 2 hen decoys in the field.  We just sat and didn't make a sound, since we knew where they generally were and knowing that they liked that field, we just wanted to see what would happen.  The gobbler was the first one to sound off, and he was within 40 yards of me. It was still dark enough where I couldn't make him out, but I figured I'd have to be able to see him.  Then the hens started cutting loose, yelping and cutting up a storm, and the gobbler would gobble every once in a while.  My dad was mimicking the hens on his slate call, and had about a 15 minute non stop conversation with the hens.  During the midst of all this, I finally spotted him strutting on the limb, and could hear him drumming.  It was at this point that my heart started pounding.  

Eventually, 2 of the hens pitched down in the woods, and the tom gobbled and then flew down with them and they started working deeper into the woods, away from me.   3 other hens continued calling from the trees, and eventually they flew down directly into the field, landing within feet of the decoys.  The one was particularly interested in them, walking circles around them, yelping right in their face.  This kept the tom gobbling every so often, and he wasn't getting any closer.  I'm watching the hens out in the field from inside the woods, not 10 yards from my dad, when suddenly the 3 hens turned into 5 hens, with a red head in tow.  The tom and 2 hens and gone below a hill, circled around and came out into the field.  I saw him just in time, swung the gun over and waited for him to step in between two trees and shot and down he went at 29 steps.  I went from the low of hearing what sounded like getting farther away to seeing him pop out of nowhere right in gun range.  From the time I saw him in the field to the time I shot was about 5 seconds.  Luckily, from inside the woods, I had just enough of an opening to get a clear shot.  

This was my first bird with my own handloaded shells as well.

He is my best bird to date, with a 10.5" beard, 1 3/16" and 1 1/16" spurs and he tipped the scale at 20.5lbs.

[ceejay]

Awesome outdoor grill ........ oh, and nice gobbler   

[turkey slayer]

Congrats!

[TauntoHawk]

exactly what I was thinking

Awesome outdoor grill ........ oh, and nice gobbler   

[mikejd]

awesome. way to top your personel best. now to get dad one.

[stone road turkey calls]

 

[M,Yingling]

Thats good bird congrats

[BowBendr]

Real good bird. Congrats. 

[Gazelle]

Rockin beard!

[captin_hook]

That's a pig. Good job.

[Ol'Mossy]

Nice bird, congrats 

[surehuntsalot]

congrats on a very fine looking bird

[hunter-b]

 

[WiLL B]

A Fine looking gobbler! Congrats!!

[tomstopper]

Congrats.. Nice job.