Well I'm back, but I'm not very happy with myself, this weekend I wounded one for the 1st time. I made one of the biggest mistakes a hunter can make, I changed my set-up then went hunting without shooting paper 1st.

I have always used my modified choke tube for everything, it always worked fine, thursday night I figured I should throw my full choke in. Come friday morning I was in the fields and didn't want to start shooting the area up, so I just hunted. Around 5pm I see a nice tom (didn't strut, but thick long beard and lots of blue in his head) at around 35yrds, he was moving around me checking out my jake decoy, I wasn't sure that he would commit so I took the shot, he was thrown back and lost a bunch of feathers, but he took off running, all of the 5 previous turkeys that I have shot simply dropped on the 1st shot. I followed up with a second shot while he ran, and a third just as he entered the tree line.

I found good blood and feathers at the location of the 1st shot, so I was confident that he was dead in the forest. I followed the blood trail (nothing like following a deers blood trail, thats for sure) for a couple hundred yards before the drops turned into more of a fine spray of blood then ended. I figure he must have had the strength to run and take air, the flapping motion would explain the trail turning into a fine spray of droplets.

I almost didn't post this, because I feel like an ass, but I did search till dark (>2hrs), and I'm on this team, so your all stuck with me. I said before that I would hold off for a tom, but now if a big jake comes in close I may pop it just to get my confidence back up again, don't worry, I get 2 tags.