Indiana Thunder

[Gobspur]

On the night before opener in Indiana the lighting, rain, and thunder roared.  Some areas saw good size hail.  Nonetheless, me and three buddies made our way to the small cabin for our annual hunting trip.  After little sleep, we rolled out at 4 am to completely calm but cloudy conditions.  We quickly headed up the hill and headed our separate ways on the large tract of public ground.  I setup out a long ridge with a field and pond on top, where I'd had success the last two openers.  We figured they wouldn't be gobbling good after the heavy storms through the night, so I went ahead and setup just into the wood line at my lucky tree.  Surprisedly, several birds fired off early but none with several hundreds yards of me.  But, I heard several hens close by so I decided to stay put.   After I heard the closest hen flew down about 7:00, I started calling on my Gooserbat Ol' Hickory.  Talked with a hen for awhile but she finally moved off.  I kept clucking and yelping every 15-20 mins.   About 8:00, as I was devouring a granola bar to keep my stomach from yelping, the thunder gobbler sounded off 150 yds to my right.  I quickly spun around the tree, finished chewing, and popped in my mouth call.  I yelped out another series, and he double gobbled at me.  Put down the call and got my gun up.  A few minutes later he rounded a down tree and saw my avian hen, at which he picked up the pace.  I picked my spot at an opening at 35 yds, and when his head cleared the tree, the old 870 supermag shot him in the face with a load of 2oz #6 longbeards!  Two flops and he was done.  It was a quick but exciting hunt on a morning I didn't expect much.  But I kept telling myself to have patience and stick with it.  He was a nice bird at 22 lbs, 10.5 inch beard, and 1 and 1/16 inch spurs.  Three years and three birds from almost the same tree.  God is good! 

[owlhoot]

Nice bird congrats   

[grayfox]

Thanks for sharing that story with everyone. Congrats on nice bird too!

[tomstopper]

Nice one. Congrats

[Dr Juice]

Nice. Your bird looks like he's having a smoke. Congrats.

[Greg Massey]

Great story and a nice bird. Patience is the name of the game.

[Gold Spur]

Congrats, dandy bird!

[ars1234]

Great Story and gobbler congrats!

[mgm1955]

  Congrats!!

[wmn2]

Congrats

[TRG3]

Nice bird and great story! I've got some of those "lucky" trees that have produced 5-6 turkeys each over the years. When I'm setting up there, I've got confidence to stay just a little longer which sometimes makes all the difference.

[cramerhunts]

Very nice, congratulations!

[perrytrails]

Sounds like a great hunt!
Congrats

[Happy]

Congrats!

[Double B]

Nice bird, public hunts rock.