I met matthewgentry this morning, we had come up with a decent plan for some birds we had been on before earlier in the year.
I struck out down the roadway toward a creek where I had been hearing a couple birds gobbling before but had yet to try this year. Sure enough he was right along the creek, but there wasn't any way to get very close to him on the roost.I decided to try a big loop around him to get on the creek bottom above him. Made the loop and setup just to hear him a good bit farther down than I had hoped. After just a minute i went against my better judgement and decided to ease back toward him.
As I was walking down the roadway that runs parallel to the creek I happened to catch a glimpse of his fan along the creek below me. He was not but about 75-80 yards away, and after a few minutes I decided to try and crawl to the edge of the hill.
It probably took about 20 minutes for me to cover the 20 yards or so to the edge of the hill, as he strutted for his lady friends with him. After he bred both of them and they began to feed off up the creek I figured it was now or never, so I gave him one yelp. He instantly gobbled and turned my way. After just a second he had made it to the creek edge and I found a small hole to shoot through. The tss knocked him cold at about 40 yards.
He was by far my biggest bird ever with 2 11 1/8 inch beards, 1 1/8 spurs and 18lbs 11 oz.
The crazy part came as I started packing him back up the long road to the truck. I was sending a text to a guy as I neared a mud hole when I noticed something you just don't see every day in Alabama.
After matthewgentry got back to the truck I found out that he had a nice close encounter with a decent size black bear. The bear had walked the same road I went in on apparently just after I went through and then wound up just behind Matt as he was on a turkey. It was definitely not what I expected to find on the way out.
