Tough season but 1 down

[2Barrel]

After hard hunting during the first week with no results. Put one down yesterday. Was settled in at about 5 a.m. and waited for light. When I had some decent grey light and didn't here anything I decided to give a cluck. Nothing. Waited a couple more minutes and gave another cluck on a pot call. Nothing. Started thinking this aint good. Waited a few more minutes and gave a nice loud cluck. The woods exploded with about 5 gobblers hammering back at about 50 yards. So from there we did some nice tree talkin for quite some time. Finally I said. ITS TIME. I broke out the cherry aluminum over glass pot call with an Purple Heart striker. Started doing some nice loudish raspy yelps and broke right into a fly down call. Then I went tight lipped. Waited about 30 seconds and started scratching some leaves. I got some gobbles back almost immediately then saw two gobblers fly down. I had my son in law with me who came along just to watch and I said "here they come". Put my gun up, was ready, and a few minutes went by and nothing. Im thinkin man here we go again. Gonna be another long day. Well it seems within just a few minutes these toms met up with some hens who led them away from me. Welp, it is what it is. Waited a little while and could here they were several hundred yards away. Got up to stretch my legs and told son to do the same. I decided to move and went to fetch the deke and all the sudden out of nowhere had a nice hard gobble hammer out behind us and could tell he was really interested. Repositioned and got ready. Did some nice light yelps with the box and man he was fired up. Sounded to be about 80 yards away. Waited a little bit and did some purring and clucking with a slate. He was hollerin at that to and was coming in fast. Then he hung up. Man o man here we go again. By this time had the gun up and mouth call in. Did some real soft yelps and he started in again but slowly. Im thinkin to myself "hes a smart one". He came around the corner and saw my deke and locked up in full strut. He was about 40 yards out and he looked real uneasy about the Avian X deke. He started to turn and I think he was about to bolt when I hit him with a few loud yelps to get his head up. Well it worked. I put the hammer down and there he dropped. Sorry about the long winded post but this was just one of those hunts where it will stick out in my mind. I had a BLAST on this one and I think I just turned the son in law into a turkey hunter. The bird had a 9 7/8 inch beard, 1 1/8 inch spurs on both legs but only weighed 18.5 Lbs. As I was cleaning him I discovered that he was shot before long time ago. Maybe that's why the low weight ? I can tell ya this though. He did seem a little smarter than most. I guess getting shot before taught him something LOL.
Back at it early a.m.

[mgm1955]

Great bird, congrats!!

[2Barrel]

Great bird, congrats!!

Thanks MGM. Starting to warm up slightly up here in the N.E. so I hope it starts to fire things up a little. Been too damn cold. Birds seem to be set back a little.

[alloutdoors]

Nice bird, congrats!

[tomstopper]

Congrats on a good bird.

[crappieangler]

nice story, congrats on the hard earned bird

[born2hunt]

Good job keeping at it. Congrats.

[taylorjones20]

Congrats!

[owlhoot]

nice bird, good story

[2Barrel]

Thanks all. headed too a new piece tomorrow with a good ol boy on some big open farm land with some hard woods on all sides. Hoping too score a double. Fingers crossed.

[Snoodsniper]

Good bird,good story. Congrats!

[zelmo1]

Nice bird, Congrats

[surehuntsalot]

 

[beagler]

Nice!

[Gooserbat]

Great job