We leased 280 acres earlier this year, prime turkey hunting. We've been seeing a lot of hens, a few gobblers and 4 of us were primed for opening day. My blind was set in the edge of a field, and I placed my Dad's home made "pretty boy" out in it - not a bad looking decoy setup huh ? The gobbler rotates with the slightest winds.
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I saw 1 man in the morning, nothing else. He didn't trespass, but came to the fence and was very interested in my dekes at first ! Suck morning, 25 mph winds and cloudy and cold, no gobbling at all, no turkeys seen by me or my Dad. Other 2 guys hunting saw 2 gobblers strutting with 2 hens, far away.
We went in for lunch and check the hog trap. Wild hogs have been rooting my uncles fields and my Dad built a trap from cattle panels and sure enough, an 80 pound little shote was in it ! She looked very wild, not just wild/domesticated but actuially looked javalina-ish and Razorback-ish. She was also VERY fiesty, posturing and fauxc attacking us by rushing the cage. impressive how agressive it was. FINE EATING TOO
Back to the woods at about 1 pm, Dad stayed behind to clean hog and I slipped into his blind. I saw 2 hens going into a long, narrow field about 1/2 mile from my morning stand. Settled in and maybe 30 minutes a couple of hens came in, all around my decoy. Maybe 15 minutes later, way off to my left, out of nowhere were 2 gobblers in strut. I was not going to waste time and be picky, I lowered the boom on the lead gobbler and he fell in a puff of feathers and starting fly/hopping. I unzipped and out of the blind running, must have been a heck of a sight because I tackled the bird making sure I wouldn't lost him.
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Most of my pictures sucked, the above are two of the better ones.
He was 19 1/2 pounds and had 10" thick beard and 1" spurs. Dandy bird IMO, killed with my Dad's shotgun at 52 yards
Now I'm recurve hunting the rest of the season
Arkansas opening day success
