Our season has been really strange. Gobbling has been a portion of what it typically is up this way. Not to mention I didnt get to go a time between March 31 (my last kill prior to yesterday) and April 12 which was a span that apparently produced at least a few decent hunts for my friends with some birds killed.

April 12 (Thursday)

Rewind to March 30. Prior to that date, I had not heard a single gobble on my club. Me and friend went on his place that morning and heard a bird we couldnt go to and that was it. We finally made it over to my club around 9:00 and when I opened the truck door there was a turkey gobbling good low on the mountain. We fooled with him until around 11:00 and just like most days this spring....a freezing north wind started blowing and clouds rolled in. He was done for the day. I went back on April 12 finally and heard a turkey gobbling good on the limb and went to him. It was shaping up to be a classic off the roost hunt when the turkey that eventually became simply known as “Crazy” showed up behind me and the turkey coming on a string from the other direction left the country only to be heard one more time WAY up the mountain. I spun around on the tree eventually and went to work on ol Crazy. He gobbled like WILD at every noise I made so I put my calls down and figured I had about an hour before I needed to go to work. He never budged so in desperation with only a few minutes left and the earlier turkey in mind, I gobbled at him and he came unglued gobbling about 6 straight times and then shut up. I went ahead and clicked my safety off and the next time I heard him he was 200 yards away headed toward a familiar hollow. I ended up walking up on him while going back to the truck via the road and he was steady walking away strutting and drumming toward that hollow. I slipped out and went to work.

April 13 (Friday)

The next morning I was back and heard two birds gobbling great on the limb. I was about to leave my truck and I was almost positive I heard a different turkey gobble one time in the hollow he was headed toward the previous morning. I headed up the mountain and was dying to walk through that hollow and to the other two turkeys but I just couldnt do it because I just knew that bird was there though he hadnt said another word. I was standing in a logging road waiting on flydown time and was almost sure I could hear the one timer drumming in the tree. After it got flydown time, sure enough he started gobbling great in that hollow and the other birds shut off immediately. I eased up and sat down off the road and was lightly scratching leaves as I made it to my tree. He was coming unglued gobbling. Once I got sat down I decided to play him very gentle this time around. I clucked a few times super soft and barely scratched leaves and he was losing his mind. In just a minute his drumming got way louder and I could tell he had made it to about 70 yards where he would stay for the next hour or so just over a little rise. I was against the clock with work again finally and decided to purr and cluck one last time and he answered and then shut up. I clicked my safety off and never heard another peep for the next 20 minutes until I heard him gobble way down the mountain, sounding like he was trying to crawl up in the landowner’s barn. WTH happened? I had to head down that way to head to work anyway and he got to gobbling good in a familiar place. I belly crawled to a crest in the pasture and saw him strutting right by my damn truck and about 25 cows. Not a hen one with him. Again. I was able to stick up a hen decoy on that crest and started calling to him softly with ny mouth call. He started gobbling like wild again and then shut up. I laid there another 20 minutes thinking he would come strutting up that hill any second and I still don’t have the first clue where he went. Just vanished. This turkey is making me look like a fool! More on him tomorrow. Got to hit the bed.

April 14 (Saturday)

I am having grand visions that since I have plenty of time to hunt for the first time since March 31, I’m gonna kill this rascal quick and then head to TN for the rest of the day to try and double up (still never have killed one in both states on the same day). It was a beautiful (but cold like always this year) morning and it sounds like he is in the same tree from yesterday but this time (and the only time) he is gobbling great in the tree. I slip around his little 4 wheeler road and decide to gamble a little bit by getting way closer in the gray light than is comfortable to me. I had picked a hickory the previous morning and I made it to that tree and what appeared to be about 90 yards from the turkey (still not enough greenup but some cedars around to put in between us) and he was still gobbling good. I eased down to my knees and crawled around to the front side of the tree and he shuts up immediately and I hear him fly out. Busted!!! This is the part where I curse you guys that hunt pines all the time. Lol!

No worries I figure. I’ll let him get going on his own and reposition and start working him shortly. He had only pitched one bench down the mountain and started gobbling good about 20 minutes later. I backed out and made a loop and slipped in to a different setup around and up from him at about 150 yards or so. I call real gentle to him again and again it isnt but a minute til he is around 70 yards....will not pop his head up again. He stays just under that lip for close to 2 hours this time and would shut up and then start drumming and gobbling again and be hard over on my right. And then back to the left. I never laid eyes on him and he was very close the whole time. He had me in a bind on that tree over and over and over but he just will not show. He eventually shuts up again and he has lost interest. I hear him gobble one more time going down and away and long story short, I never heard him again and sat right in there til noon before deciding to leave him alone and go elsewhere to try and strike one til about 3:00 when I would have to head to the house. I never heard another turkey sound anywhere around for miles (could hear a long way over to other mountains) the entire day other than him.

April 19 (Thursday)

Finally gonna get decent weather again and I can hunt til about 8:00 only. My pal Haybale is gonna come with me to see if we can do anything with him double team. The first plan is to go in way before daylight and sit in two different spots in that hollow to see if one of us can kill him when his feet hit the ground. Long story short....he aint there. We get back together and talk about the turkey we have been hearing across the cove on the other mountain. We walk down to the pasture to get a good bead on him and he is way high up on the mountain, we both have very little time and figure we wouldnt have 15 minutes to fool with him once we made the long trek so we just listen to him for a minute and brainstorm. We had also heard a turkey just a couple times way down low so we jump in my truck and ride up through the cove and there is ol Crazy out in a big crop field by himself. He was over a rise in the field and we dont see him until we are level with him and we have no choice but to drive on past him and he is still strutting as we do. We drive down and hide the truck and use a privet hedgerow to try and get within 150 yards or so of him. We sneak and sneak and eventually figure out he has vanished again. Off to work. It is starting to get real personal now! Bout to call in professional backup for the next morning!

April 20 (Friday)

Me and my pal t123winters had hunted together one evening early in the season and I had told him I would love for him to come hunt with me at some point as he had only ever been on my places when he was the caller on a youth hunt. Like everybody in Jackson County, his hunts had been terribly quiet and he was excited about the prospect of fooling with a turkey that would most likely gobble great. We were both off work that day and he had a wedding to leave for around 11:00. He follows me in with the intent of heading out when he needs to and I’m gonna give ol Crazy my entire day if I have to. We have no idea where he will be so we just stand in the pasture enjoying some fellowship and wait for the spring woods to come to life. Ol Crazy gobbles a few times on the creek and pitches out in the big crop field and starts gobbling good. We start to make a move to setup on him and we look with binocs again and he is gone. We finally spot him and he is running wide open to get to the spot where he was on the previous day with Haybale. We get in the truck and drive way past him this time and make a much bigger loop to avoid spooking him. He gobbles like wild the whole time and we make it to the hedgerow in great shape about 120 yards from him. I crawl up and get hid and Chilibowl stands behind a big hackberry so he can watch him while calling to him (he can run the hell out of call by the way). In just a minute he tells me he is coming and to get ready. I catch a glimpse of him around 90 yards angling toward us and we eventually lose him in a patch of tall flowers. We wait and wait and wait. Nothing. We finally see him again and he is 200 yards away moving toeard the creek and the mountain on the other side of it. We dont hear him for a bit and then finally hear him low on that mountain about 250 yards away. WTH!?!? We are beginning to believe that maybe this turkey wants to be called to a bunch. Chilibowl starts getting aggressive and gets a hen on that mountain wound up. This turkey is losing his mind gobbling. Chilibowl gobbles at himself with his mouth (unreal how real it sounds) and he starts coming toward us and the other mouthy hen. We deduce he gets hooked up with her and he goes silent for a while. This is a rare morning where we actually heard 4 or 5 turkeys so we get in the truck and drive across the creek to go get in between where we last heard Crazy and another bird. We walk up the mountain and get sat down to listen a while eventually. We hear nothing for a while and Chilibowl finally calls again and ol Crazy cuts him off way around the mountain. We get up and head to him and find him in a fresh cutover with several rises in it. We cover lots of ground toward him in a hollow on the far side and Chilibowl stays back while I slip up to about 100 yards from him and get hid. He starts calling to him and he gets wound up again. He shuts up on him multiple times and eventually he shuts up himself and I am expecting to hear him drumming any minute. He finally gobbles again and he has hauled arse straight away from us again. I take Chilibowl to his truck (almost 11:00 by now) and he wishes me luck....with that look in his eye that I’m gonna need it. Lol!

I never hear or see him again that day and we all evetually deduce he is traumatized 2 year old given he never has hens. I am leaning that way myself but some of the events that transpired kinda make me think he is the boss and loves patrolling that whole area. Regardless....he needs to die!

April 21 (Saturday)

Although I ought to be going to Tennessee to get a break from ol Crazy...I just can't do it. I have become obsessed with getting him killed somehow and he is either gonna ruin my season or I'm gonna kill him. I see no other option at this point. I stop and talk to the landowner from time to time over this span and he will tell me about leaving to head to town and seeing him standing in the pasture alone strutting and gobbling. One day in particular he is out in his shop and hears him gobbling close. He walks outside and he is standing alone by the aforementioned barn gobbling like wild at about 12:30. Multiple turkey killing friends tell me to leave him alone and go find another one, but all of my Jackson County killer pals tell me they aren't hearing ANYTHING AT ALL. They can't get on a turkey to save their lives so I see zero need to abandon him when I have high confidence he will at least tell me where he is while the rest don't say a word.

This particular morning was cold once again, but very little wind at least. I decide to go way early and setup on the creek about 60 yards from his spot from the previous two early morning days. My plan is to use a dry sandy ditch to belly crawl out into gun range if I have to. It has now turned into kill him via any and every legal way possible. As one would expect, he ain't on this side of the road on this morning and is instead over behind the landowner's barn again on this morning. Aggravating !@#$% !@#$%!!!!! I sit and listen to him for a little bit and then start making my way to the truck with the intent of dropping off my lounger and regrouping. While I was walking up the hedgerow he shut up over there and I had a BM pain hit me. I'm doing my business and he finally gobbles again and he has come a LONG way toward me on that mountain up behind my truck. I know where a clean, quiet 4 wheeler road is heading up the mountain on the near side of the pasture but I have got to hurry! I finish up, cross the fence, and basically run up that way listening to him gobble while traveling around the bench. Unfortunately, I'm a little too late. I simply can't risk getting up on the bench he is on without busting him. I sit down in the road and proceed to listen to him gobble and drum for several minutes while trying to make a plan. He would get as close as maybe 70 yards and was obviously walking back and forth a little and turning around. I eventually started crawling up the road in hopes of making it to the crest of the rise to be able to see up on that bench he is on a little in case he continues on past me. I was gonna flat ambush him with zero regret whatsoever. I made it to a place where I absolutely couldn't go any further out of fear of running him off and sat down behind a little poplar tree. For the next 2 hours or so he was in and out of gun range and I saw his head for a brief instant a couple times through a big dead tree on the ground. I figure he will eventually continue the direction he was originally headed and would walk right across this little 4 wheeler road going up the mountain and I would kill him there. His gobbling got even closer around 10:00 and I had no earthly idea how I couldn't see him up on that bench. I was looking hard with the safety off and propped up on that poplar. He shut up for a few minutes and I was straining to see him. He finally gobbled again and he was past the road (and me). How in the hell he got by me without me seeing him I have no earthly idea. It did seem like he had gotten a little higher on the mountain which probably put him just out of my sight when he crossed. As if he knew exactly where I was, he walked a little loop around me and started coming back down the mountain gobbling every step at what sounded like around 70 yards. I never could lay eyes on him over behind me due to the terrain. I honestly thought he was about to walk out in that particular pasture and I had every intention of belly crawling up on him and ambushing him. I heard him gobble a few more times going away and down the mountain so I got up and moved to the edge of the pasture to watch for him before making another move. He moved off a little bit, gobbled a few more times, and never said another word for the next two hours or so. I swear I would have ordered an Apache gun run on that place if I had the ability. I headed home to watch my son play an afternoon soccer game around 1:00 with a whipped arse once again. I never heard another turkey the entire morning other than him. Not a single gobble elsewhere and I have zero doubt there are at least 3 or 4 more gobblers within earshot of me. This is most likely going to be the last morning I will get to fool with him until Sunday, April 29.

April 26 (Thursday)

I get out of work a little early that beautiful afternoon (the weather was TERRIBLE in between) and run wide open to get up there for a short afternoon hunt. I talk to the landowner for just a minute and he said he had seen him around mid-day in one of the pastures nearby gobbling like wild, again all alone like always. I had no idea what I was gonna do as I had never heard him gobble in the afternoon a single time. Based upon where he had seen him, I just went to one of his favorite roost hollows and got sat down and hid around 5:00. I did some light calling and leave scratching and never heard or saw a turkey of any kind.

April 29 (Sunday)

I had committed to a conference (FREEDOM for those that might be Church of the Highlands members) on Friday April 27 and Saturday April 28. I could have gone that Friday morning but I wanted to rest up for the conference so I could be fully engaged. Glad I did to because it was life changing! I was exhausted Saturday night but told my wife I just had to go chase him the next morning as it was gonna be beautiful (but cold...just like all "spring"). I had no idea where he might be but walked up to the edge of the pasture behind the landowner's house in the black dark and waited on the spring woods to wake up. I hear absolutely nothing until around flydown time and I finally hear a turkey gobble across the pasture, across the road, across the crop field, across the creek, and up on the other mountain. I am convinced it is him. Why wouldn't it be!? I just laughed and proceeded to listen to him get hotter and hotter so I takeoff. Based on where he was, I was scared to death of driving my truck across the creek so I stopped at the truck and put on my rubber knee boots and started the long walk to him. I make it to the creek ford and it actually looks tame though there was certainly still a fair amount of runoff from all of the rain in the previous days. I knew it was gonna be close and started tip-toeing across the creek. I make it about halfway across and my left boot fills up. A few more steps and my right boot fills up. Aggravating !@#$ !@#$%^ !@#$% I'm gonna kill you, you warty headed !@#$%. I empty my boots out and start slipping quietly up the mountain road toward where I last heard him. I stop to listen and catch my breath a little bit and I hear him around the mountain a little. It sounds like he is in the edge of the cutover where he was when me and Chilibowl fooled with him. If that is true, he is coming toward me as he travels. I keep climbing up the good road quietly and it is sounding more and more like he might actually be in the road I am walking up. I make it to a curve on a bench that turns toward him and there is no doubt he is in the road I am walking up. I hit the edge of the road and start crawling up to a decent spot where I should be able to see him come around a corner around 80 yards away and then there is a dip he will walk through and pop up on me at about 30 yards. I no more get on my belly and I hear him again and see pieces of him approaching that next curve. He disappears down into that dip and I can hear him drumming and occasionally gobbling. It takes him a few minutes and then I finally catch a glimpse of his head coming over the rise and he immediately putts. Too late buddy! BOOM!!! Flat ambushed and damn proud of it!!! I walk up to him in that road and see some good hooks and a big turkey. He wasn't a two year old after all so I guess he was just crazy and maybe bred the hens and then kicked em out of the bed so to speak? I dunno. Joker was crazy as a run over dog though. His breast bone was bare so he certainly did a bunch of breeding but he was always alone when I fooled with him so who knows what his MO was. I honestly feel like all of the other turkeys shutting up was a combo of him patrolling that whole area so much and also just a sucky spring in general with all of the cold messing up our entire season as a whole. Regardless, I was tickled to death to finally get my hands on him and am super thankful to have had him to hunt with most everybody experiencing totally silent mornings up this way.

19 lb 10 oz
10.25" beard
1 1/4" spur and 1 1/8" spur (long for mountain birds!)

I enjoyed the stories Chad!! Thanks for sharing and I'm glad you killed him

Thanks pal. Got one more to go...the best one out of all of em to me!

April 30 (Monday - Last day of the Bama season)

Two of my 3 children were out of school. Also, my mother-in-law was coming to the house to stay for a couple weeks while undergoing further cancer treatment. I needed to do a few more things to get the house ready for her to stay so I took off work. I was crazily curious to see if any turkeys would gobble now that he was gone. However, the only gobbling I had heard about from anybody was in the middle of the day. My youngest son has never been nearly as much of a hunter as my oldest one, but he takes spells that he likes to try new styles of hunting. He had never been turkey hunting with me til yesterday. After me coaxing him a bit about how fun it would be to stop and talk with the landowner (he is a socialite to say the least!) and his other elderly pals out in the workshop, told him he could take his slingshot, reminded him we wouldn't stay long and wouldn't have to sit still for long (he hates that part), etc. etc....he finally relented and agreed to go. We hit the road close to 10:00 and arrived at the landowner's house right around 10:30. We sat in the shop and laughed until we cried at those old men picking at each other. They fell in love with Elijah and vice versa. We eventually left the shop around 11:45 and drove up to a parking place where I wanted to start (so he wouldn't have to climb at all really...mainly just flat walking on 4 wheeler roads). We started walking around high noon. We would stop at every mudhole along the road and he would stalk frogs and try to kill em with his slingshot. I would call at every stop and of course it was dead silent. Around 1:20 we finally made it out to a place that I fell in love with when I started hunting this place last season. It is one of the most beautiful turkey places I have ever seen in the mountains of Jackson County. I showed Elijah a giant white oak and told him that I had prayed/asked God to please let me kill a turkey at some point while sitting against that giant white oak. Elijah was looking for frogs in a mudhole in the road about 30 yards from that giant white oak and I yelp and cut on my mouth call and was almost positive I heard a turkey answer me way off. It sounded like it was way out ahead of us off of that point we were on top of but I wasn't even sure it wasn't a woodpecker as the wind had picked up just a little. I stood there about a minute and yelped again and he didn't answer. I told Elijah it was prolly a long shot but there was a chance that was a turkey and that we needed to get over to that white oak and get sat down ASAP. He is a lefty and I sat him up so the turkey would be on his right if he came walking up that road. There was a small sapling in his swing arc and I meant two or three times to tell him to put his gun on the right side of it but we had to mess with his cushion, etc. and I kept forgetting. I told him to look through the Fastfire, put the gun on his knee and get comfortable, made sure he remembered how to work the safety, etc. We no more got still and I heard pffft doooooommm. I told Elijah do not move and that I believe I just heard that turkey drum and pretty close. I almost immediately starting hearing traffic in the distance and it always has a bass type sound when it first enters your hearing so I started doubting again...especially given I ain't struck a bird all year! While I was whispering to Elijah about that he told me he could hear something walking in the leaves (I can't hear walking in the leaves at all anymore) and I asked him where. He said right here on my right. I slipped my head around and looked between his head and that giant white oak and here comes that turkey walking up the road. He walked right to where I had called from and stopped looking around. I could not BELIEVE it! I told him he is right there Elijah and he never could see him at 30 yards in wide open hardwoods standing in that road. He wasn't looking hard enough to his right. The bird finally started walking again and he finally saw him. I reminded him that I was gonna start yelping at him and that he needed to move his gun up and over that tree while I was calling and that he had about 3 seconds to get him killed. When the turkey cleared a couple trees he gave me the green light, I started yelping, he gobbled in our face, and Elijah about jumped out of his skin with the gun sorta falling off his knee and almost dropping it completely. Disaster! I just started cutting like wild and that turkey started putting and gobbling in between each set of putts. I told Elijah he needed to get him killed and quick! He finally got the gun in the vicinity of the bird and the turkey was on his way out of there. I told him he had one last shot when he next cleared and when he did I started cutting again and he slowed his walk just enough for Elijah to wad him up at 42 yards. I figured there was no way he had killed that turkey and expected to see him fly or run but that wasn't the case when I got up and ran over there! Flopping at 1:30! I got my boot on his neck and Elijah came running behind me and fell in the edge of his previous frog hunting mudhole. LOL! He was WOUND UP and his Dad was even worse! I still can't believe it happened like it did and on the last day! We had a big photo session at that ol big white oak and eventually went down to the landowner's shop and let the old men brag on him real good while he told the story. He was the king of mountain turkey hunting to hear him tell it! What an unbelievable blessing and end to what had previously been a very frustrating turkey season all the way around. Blessed beyond measure!!!

Another good mountain turkey:

19 lb 13 oz (he really liked that his was a few ounces heavier than mine from the day before)
10.5" beard (same for the longer beard LOL!)
1 1/8" and 1" spurs

Those were some great reads. Way to stick it out until the end. Congrats!

Congrats buddy

Man I know that last hunt had to put you on cloud 9.

Congrats! Great stories too!

Congrats pal I know you’re gonna be tickled over that for a long time

Yep the last one was the icing on the cake there pal I'm so happy for you both and enjoyed the story!!

You know it better than anybody my friend! Made my season!!!

All good reads but wow... that a story with your boy! Unreal! Lifetime memory right there!

Dr. B