Great Turkey Hunt

[deadeye]

Yesterday I took a friends son out turkey hunting.  Not much gobbling and everything went quiet by 6:00 AM.  I told him not to worry because they know we are here (we gave some random calls) and we just need to wait them out.  At 7:30 a tom showed up down a trail about 150 yards away.  Being he was slowly making his way to us I didn't do any calling and hoped he would eventually see our two hen decoys.  Once he cleared the trail and got on the field, he did see them.  Now it became a long waiting game.  He strutted and displayed trying to get the hens to come to him.  It took over a half hour for him to cover the 100 yards and get into shooting range.  Great show.  One blast and my friend go his bird, a nice 24 pound with a 9 1/2 beard.  He was thrilled.   After some congrats and pictures we added a jake to the decoy spread and returned to the blind about 8:30.  Around 9:30 (again we never heard a single gobble) two toms appeared on the same trail as the first one.  After watching them for about 15 minutes we gave a few calls and one responded with a gobble.  Shortly after that they made their way on to the field.  Again, we got a great show with lots of strutting and displaying.  Interesting point was the bigger one was the only one that strutted however, they never got more than 10 feet apart and showed no aggression.  As with the first bird, it took a long time for them to approach the decoys, however the show was well worth the wait.  Once in range, things didn't go exactly as planned.  I had to lean over and to my left for the shot and don't know if I hit some bird or totally miss but the turkey flew straight up about 10 feet.  I fired a second shot and it started to come down at which time I fired my last shot.  The turkey ran about 50 yards an flopped down and we thought it was done for.  Before we could get out of the blind it got up and started staggering around.  Not wanting to run it off we waited too see if it would drop again.  Eventually it made it back to the trail it came out of so I went after it.  It wasn't going too fast and I eventually go close enough for a killing shot.  Back tracking we noticed that we could actually follow a blood trail.  The turkey was 26 pounds with a 9 inch beard.     

Friends son with his bird.
 

Me and my bird


Not a bad day

[DDSBYDAY]

Nice job!!   

[HD]

Cool beans! 

[The General]

 Very nice

[Boar]

Awsome!!! Someday im gonna have to do that. but dont know where to begin.

[dakids]

Great story!!!!

Thanks for sharing. They birds look very tasty.  How do you cook them?  Same as a store bought bird?

[deadeye]

My wife cooked it yesterday.  She cooks it somewhat the same as a normal turkey but uses the "turkey bag" to prevent it from getting too dry.  Also, doesn't cook it too long as they tend to be thinner with more bones than the store bought one.  Put it in a turkey bag, put some celery and onions in side, cook for about 2 - 2.5 hours and your done.  This one was a great tasting bird.  Lots of leftovers for the next few days.