I finally got one!!! This is my 5th year hunting the things and I finally got one!! It weighed 25lbs. had a 9 3/4in beard and both spurs were 13/16. It was awesome. I got in the woods at about 5:25 am in my blind. At about 6:00 I heard a crow followed by about 4 gobblers sounding off no more that 150 yards from me!! They gobbled for quite a while then flew down in the field about 90 yards in front of me. There was 3 toms and about 12 hens. All 3 toms were huge. They strutted and gobbled over and over. You could tell one was the dominate one. As they were moving farther away from me with all the hens I saw another tom enter about 130 yards away on the other side of the field. It was definately a subordinate bird. I told my dad who was with me that we may have a chance with him cause our decoy was his only chanceIt seemed interested in my calling. It ever so slowly got closer to my decoy as the others moved away. Once it was far enough away from the bigger toms it started to strut. It gobbled a few times but kept getting closer. My dad checked and said 52 yards. I pulled my 11-87 up but he was moving. he turned away and I turned the safety off and when he turned around I pulled the trigger and let my 3.5 in Hevishot #6's fly. Down he went. We measured him with the range finder at exactly 55 yards. It was awesome. I'll post the pics when I get them. The thing is, is that for the area that I hunt, this was one of the smallest taken at 25lbs. Well I'll be going back there in 2 weeks and look to bring down another.
Congrats on your first bird and he sounds like a dandy, as for the sizes I wish I only had that problem, that the runts are 25lbs What a fantastic hunt too
My first bird
What a fantastic hunt too
