Exciting day today. Second day of Tennessee season.
After a bunch of early gobbling yesterday followed by silence after flydown, I didn't expect much today. Gobblers were henned-up and I was unable to find one by himself (other than some silly Jakes that kept "cawlking" back at me:.
What a difference a day makes.
Today dawned still, cloudy, and muggy, with severe weather warnings for tonight. I don't know if they had a fight yesterday afternoon or if it was the dropping barometric pressure, but turkeys gobbled all day and they were seperated.
Started the morning with my 10-year old son on some private hill ground we own. Got on one early but way too many hens. Left him for another one that gobbledbut found out he alsohad hens.MyDad joined us and we went to a lease of ours, 2,700 acres ofMississippiRiver bottom that has been timbered. Alternating small stands of decent timber with a lot of cutover.We heard a turkey ghobble when we got out of the trucks at 9:00 am. Set-up on him and he gobbled back at me but ended up leaving us with two hens. I got anotherturkey (sounded like more than one actually)to gobble with an aluminum slate (MAD Super Aluminator). After about 30 minutesof working these birdsthey came in for a 20 yard shot and I killed one of them. This was a good turkey for our neck of the woods: 22 lbs, 9.75 inch beard, 1.0 inch spur. Unloaded my gun and started calling for my Dad. Found another gobbler and got him to 65 yards.I could see this turkey standingin one place and gobbled for 20 minutes buthe wouldn'tmove an inch. Eventually he walked within 45 yards of my Dad but he didn't or couldn't see him.
Overall we set up on8 gobbling birds and called in 4 to gun range (three of them together, of which I took one). It was a great day for my son, who got to hear a lot of turkey talk and see three come in together. Next weekend will be his chance again as he was drawn for the youth hunt at LBL.
Below is a link to the picture.
http://webpages.charter.net/tlovell/Tom%20and%20Peter%20with%20Turkdy%204.2.06