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.
Last edited by JUGHEAD; 05/01/18 10:18 AM.
