Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk ALTurkey Talk -- Beards and Spurs Great end to a rough season!

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!)