In a previous thread a couple of days ago, I had mentioned that I had not killed a turkey in 6 years, as a matter of fact I hadn't even came close. Managed to get out of my slump this morning with a very respectable bird off some public land in Greene County.

This Turkey marks #3 for me, and he's really the only bird I've ever "worked". I heard him gobble on the roost and managed to get set up about 100 yards away from his tree before fly-down. He was gobbling good on the roost, so I shot him a call, and he thundered back at me. I didn't want to over call at him while he was still in the tree so after he answered me twice, I shut up and kind of expected him to come in. However, his feet hit the ground, and I could tell he was coming hard to my right and it didn't look like his path of travel would bring him into range. It's almost like he was flanking me to my right to come up behind me so I jumped up and moved back about 100yards. It wasn't very hard to peg where he was because he was gobbling about every 2 minutes. After I backed up, I got up against a big tree and angled myself in the direction I thought he would be coming from. Then, my heart sank when I heard him hammer between me and my previous setup. It occurred to me then, that if I had just sat still, he would have ended up right in my lap.

As he's trailing away from me, I pull up OnX, and I figure out pretty quickly that he is going to run out of dry land. If I manage to get back out in front of him, I can get set up in time to position myself in a thin strip of timber that acts as pinch point between an overgrown dredge field and the back of a large slough. I jump up make a huge circle out in front of him and get sat down about 30 yards from the river bank. I waited about 30 minutes and shot him a call. He thundered back at me, 10 minutes later I was watching him put on a show strutting and gobbling down the river bank right toward me. Watching that bird strut and drum through the cypress trees on the bank of that river was the most beautiful sight I've ever encountered in the woods. It looked like a scene from some of those Primos Truth videos when they go hunting in the mississippi river bottoms. He closed the distance to 15 steps and I sent a load of #5 shot his way. He hit the ground like a sack of hammers. I was fired up. Very Blessed morning.

10" beard
1 1/4" spur and 1" spure

Spurs were very light colored, almost white. Very cool looking bird

Well done dude! That’s awesome. I can’t emphasize enough how impressed I am that you’ve stuck with turkey hunting like you have through the dry years. Thanks for sharing the pics and stories!

Awesome! Congrats.

Thanks hoss! This morning was an incredible experience. Makes all the dry years totally worth it

Congrats them are some awesome looking spurs

Congratulations!

Nice!! Congrats

Congrats again!

Those spurs look to be longer than 1 and 1.24 inches.

You measure this way?


God Bless,
David B.

Very cool. Congrats.

No I didn’t think to put the curve to it. I just put the tip of my tape to the base of his spur and measured a straight line. If that’s the way I’m supposed to measure, then they are a little longer

Congrats. Way to stick with it.

Congrats on a fine bird.

Congrats!!

Haha I guess you really didn’t want to be the camp cook!! Man awesome story and a major congrats!! Well done brotha!!

Very nice bird congrats!

Update. got my hands on a pair of fish scales, pulled him out of the freezer and the bird weighed 19lbs on the nose. I'm told that's a big bird especially for late April.