Score One More For Team 9...First year first day success!!!

it flies it dies · 04-18-2005, 10:18 PM

First I wanna say thanks to everyone on here who helped me out with advise cause it paid off...A LOT, so thanks everyone. I'll share the story and show some pics.

It was opening morning and shooting hours were at 6:10am...AS USUAL I was running a little late but I had arrived at my hunting sight at 6:30am. Since I was already late I decided to drive the gravel roads surrounding the field to see if I could find any out in the field. I wasnt seeing anything when all of a sudden a big tom ran across the road on to someone else's property [:@]. I decided to take this as a sign to get my butt set up and start calling to see if I couldnt bring him back. I drove back to my spot and parked the truck behind the trees I was going to be hunting and as soon as I opened my door I heard gobbing coming from our field and I knew my toms were out there. I quickly uncased my 870 express and loaded up and grabbed my decoy. My friend had come with to call for me and we both hurried our way up the hill to the spot we were going to sit. I saw the toms first and sure enough, about 200 yards out there were two of the toms I had been watching for the last 3 months of scouting. I told my friend to take the decoy and crawl as far as he could and try to put it out without being seen and he did. Then we quickly set up back in the trees and my friend crawled up in one of our old deerstands. The second he started to cluck my body went biserk and my pulse went wild as I heard all the gobbles. There were gobblers in front of us beside us and behind us. We guessed there were at least twenty gobblers responding to our calls or the gobbling of the other toms. But 3 caught our attention. The two out in front of us and the one that sounded less the 100 yards behind us. I was unsure which way to face cause I didnt know which would arrive first but I sat still and watched out in the field. Those two toms slowly dissapeared behind the hill and stopped responding to our calls. Then we saw a rooster pheasant being chased by two coyotes out about 80 yards. [:@] if I would have had my rifle both would have been down. We decided since we had nothing responding to us at the moment to try to call in the coyotes and since they were down wind they didnt want to come in and soon gave up and left. So we decided to try to move out to where we lost the two toms and set up again. Just as we were about to get up we saw the two again. My friend called a few times and they both immediately started to close the 150 yards at a dead run. Not much later they were only 70 yards out and had slowed down and began to slowly close the distance. My friend continued to coax them into range and as they got to about 45 yards they began to move more to the side and dissapear behind a small hill. Just as they dissapeared I decided I would sneek up and try to get a quick shot but was immediately stopped by my friend who had a better view of the toms and saw them quickly coming at the decoy. so I stopped and raised my gun and sure enough the big tom came over the hill all puffed out and his tail fanned with the littler jake RIGHT behind so I couldnt get a shot without hitting both. I kept my patience and kept the red dot from my red dot scope on the head of the big tom and waited until I finally decided I had enough room between the two and leveled the tom. It was a 10 yard shot with 3 inch #5 Heavy load and he dropped like a rock. Then I checked the time and it was 7:15!!! I had been waiting two years for a 45 min hunt. AND IT WAS WORTH IT. Thanks again everyone for the help and I can't wait til next season!! Oh, by the way the tom was 23 1/2 pounds with a 9 inch beard and 1/2 inch spurs. Here are the pics