I was in to my spot by 5:30 am or so and found someone already set up there, so I wished him luck and moved to plan B spot.
There was little to no gobbling on the roost and I could just faintly hear the odd distant gobble. Nothing was making a peep if it was near me. I have learned from experience to sit put for at least 4 hours because sometimes they sneak in quietly.
I was going through all the tree yelps and then later some yelps and cutting, being careful not to over do it. At 8am I decided to try to get a shock reaction out of anything within 500 yards and really hit the slate call hard with some agressive cutting. When I stopped I thought I heard a faint gobble behind me about 300yards or so.
I waited 2 minutes and gave some yelps. Bingo! He was down to about 200 yards and closing fast. 2 minutes later I yelped again and heard him at about 100 yards gobbling his head off. That's when I saw it. I thought I was dreaming because here comes this turkey at a full sprint heading toward me.
He hung up at 75 yards when he spied the two ladies out in front of me
and began strutting hard. We talked back and forth for 5 minutes and then I went into "hard to get mode". I gave a few soft purrs on the mouth call and he went nuts. Those ladies were not going to him, so in he came running again.At 30 yards two sharp clucks got his attention and the Winchester roared a load of tungsten his way. Man those shells have some knock down power
.A very quiet morning turned very successful. This patience thing is paying off.
The layout.......(the blind is at the tree line between the deeks)
The blind.......
The star of the show..........(the tom)
And the very happy hunter.......
Bird was a mature tom.
23 lbs
8 1/2 inch beard
1 1/8 inch spurs
Now for the second tag and maybe a video of the hunt
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