Sorry guys, it was a blowin and going week in Maryland. Started off opening day I killed a monster turkey on a straight off the roost. My personal best bird, 26.8 lbs 10.75 beard and 1 1/4 spurs... ended up ranking #2 in Maryland in weight and 15 in total score for a typical bird... enough about me...

Tom and the NWTF producer showed up on Friday early enough to roost some birds on the property we had been saving for his hunt. It was “Damn Cold” as Tom would call it even with a solo cup of Blanton’s whiskey, (thanks Dr B) Tom had enough and they retired back to the hotel...

Mali and I stayed out and watch gobblers retreat to the woods, and it just so happened that big gobbler Mali was watching was chased by a fox and roosted in an area away from his hens so we figured we had the perfect game plan...

Morning of the hunt was a bitter cold 35 degrees but at least the wind had died down. Tom shows up in ready to rock sporting a 1979 Sears and Roebuk hunting jacket and camo and a pair of pants only an Alabama game warden would be proud of! It was like stepping back in time and old school all the way!

To get to the spot we expected this gobbler would be going to his girls was about a 300 yard walk at least 30 minutes before you would even think it might be turning daylight. It was a very hard walk for Tom, who will be turning 91 in two weeks. But he was excited and determined...

We get setup and as light approaches the gobbler fires off on his own and he is no more than 100 yards from us roosted on the edge of the Chester river across the winter wheat field to our left. We let the gobbler do his thing for about 15 minutes and he gobbled at least 10 times before we gave him some nice tree yelps... That was the last time we heard him gobble. Plus he was the only bird that gobbled at all...

About 45 minutes into the hunt we had a beautiful Bald Eagle sweep down towards our decoys Tom turn to me and says, ( I have video of this on my phone) “I’d bet if you had one of the moving decoys he’da attack them”. I’ve seen some cool stuff in the turkey woods but that has to rank the best, and to be sitting next to Tom made it even more special... we then decided it was time to get some breakfast and head back out for the 10am “run and gun”...

During breakfast Tom treated us to some classic stories from hunting in South Dakota with a fan to watching Turkeys eating crawfish in the swamp, I could sit and chat with him for weeks and never get tired of it, got a few of the stories on my phone as well but with Tom’s Army background the language is rated R... if you know what I mean...

We get back out for the second hunt that morning, quitting time is 12 noon in Communist Maryland. Still no gobbles, but Tom did get a chance to fan a deer, to at least 20 yards of our setup. Then the answer to our “where are the Turkeys?” Question showed up...

We were all sitting a long a downed tree on the edge of the field Tom on the left, the NWTF producer next, then me and Mali was on the far right, he and I were basically in the woods. What we thought was more Deer coming out to the field ended up being a huge fox. Mali started giving him some mouse Squeeks and he turned and came straight to us... when he got 20 yards from Mali, he broke into a run and was on Mali so fast all he could do was hit him with a stick. He stuck around eye balling us for about 15 minutes at about 40 yards away, we were all hoping he would go into the field and Tom could kill that sum beech... anyway day one was a bust as far as getting Tom on a gobbler...

I’m going to finish this on my computer, this is too much writing on my phone... stay tuned...