lets hear the best turkey hunting story you have had all year

I found 4 different turkeys that were alone and lonely for a hen, and all 4 were dead within 30 minutes of fly down. I haven't had many years like that; it was just good luck. I attribute it to the fact that I roll around like a dog in the blood and feathers after killing one. Yekrut taught me that powerful jinx preventative. Also, I have hunted in the same shirt and pants all season and wouldn't dream of washing them. The little things add up.

I spent 2 hours on the other one, but I've gotten old enough that I prefer the easy ones that don't leave you with much of a story.

Here’s the story of my first successful turkey hunt. I’ve never hunted turkey much, but I’ve recently caught the bug. Though I was only able to go out twice this year, the first time was a charm for me this season. I’m sure I made every rookie mistake in the book, and I have a feeling that luck and low-intelligence birds were both factors.

In order to avoid oversleeping and arriving late, I decided to camp out under the stars at my listening spot. I camped out at this location in March and woke up to a turkey gobbling his head off for an hour and a half. No such luck this time though.

I was awake and alert by 5:45, and attempted an owl call around 6:00. Nothing answered, but not long thereafter, I heard a gobble in the distance toward the NE. I was hoping to hear one closer, so I checked nearby pastures. I sat in one for a bit and put out my decoys. I tried to call one up using my slate call. Nothing answered me, but by 6:20 I had heard the distant gobbler a few more times and I also heard a hen that was answering him located in the same direction. I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to coerce him to come to me instead of her, so at about 6:30, I packed up my gun and decoys and starting walking in his direction, without a good idea of how far away he was.

I knew that he was no closer than the Bridge Cut, which is a half-mile from campsite and 500 yards from where I was sitting in the catch pen pasture. As I approached the pasture, I wasn’t as careful as I should have been and I was halfway across the old south bridge before I realized a hen 20 yards into the pasture was staring at me. I froze and waited for a few minutes until she put her head back down and started eating again. Though I knew I had already spooked her. I dropped low and slowly moved back across the bridge. This creek is deep with steep banks. Visibility across the creek was low because of trees and brush on both sides, so I could no longer see the hen or what else may have been with her. I crawled down into the creek and slowly up the other side, and though I tried to be quiet I was noisier than I wanted. When I crested the top of the creek bank I immediately saw two gobblers puffed up and looking in my direction. I had clearly spooked them as well with my noise. My position was not good because I had climbed up the creek at their exact location and they were staring at me. I had to go back down into the creek and climb up in a new location. This time I was about 5 yards east of the bridge. I could now see there were two hens and two toms all about 10 yards into the pasture north of the wood-line. They were all about 60 yards from me through some thick brush.

At this point, I had been able to get in a kneeling position but I had no shot and no way of moving without being seen. All four turkeys were looking in my direction and knew that something was amiss. In fact, the hens quickly started for the wood-line near the location I initially climbed up, but one of the toms ran to cut them off. I don’t know if he was trying to protect them or if he just didn’t want them to leave. All four were no longer eating; they appeared to be wanting to get to cover. Luckily for me, they started walking the wood-line in my direction instead of toward safety. When I thought that I was blocked from their view, I raised my gun to shooting position. But the lead tom saw me move and turned to run the other way. I thought I was done, but I again got lucky. The other three continued to walk toward me. There was an opening in the brush about 10 yards to my left (West) and the three were heading right for it. When they got there, they stood together so that I couldn’t get a clean shot on the tom. But after about 10 seconds both hens moved leaving the tom and I took the shot. He was down at about 7:15 am. He weighed 20 pounds and had 7/8 in spurs and a 9.5 inch beard.