Ok, birds in the oven. Fresh turkey for dinner.

Here's the story;

Last night we had thunderstorms. This morning it was not raining but damp and fog socked in thick. I was hunting a spot without any scouting this year but it's a bench on National Forest land that's held roosting toms for years. So far they've skunked me every year, for one reason or another. So I had a pretty good idea something would be there and knew how to approach it (and how not to). The fog seemed to make everything glow as I hiked in pre-dawn. Off in the distance I heard a gobble, coming from down hill and about 300 yards away or more on the other side of the forest road. I had overshot the bench and was about 80 yards uphill from it. When it was light enough I gave a few soft tree yelps. I thought with the heavy fog the birds would stay on the roost a little longer but I heard a shot from down the mountain at 7:10. So some birds were down on the ground. I still hadn't heard anything from the bench area and figured I'd missed my guess. I did a little calling every 20 minutes but played it easy because there was a lot of traffic on the forest road and people calling trying to locate birds so I figured I'd play it coy. The advantage I had was I was about a 1/3 of the way from the peak and not on the road so I figured I'd seem more authentic. Heard lots of gobbling, even some triple gobbles, but all far away and all downhill. Fog was still thick and I told myself I'd stay in this spot until 9. At about 8:25 I heard a gobble real close. It was on the bench and sounded like a big one. He would gobble and drum. Then I heard a hen cutting and I imitated her repeating her calls trying to get her to come uphill. He'd gobble every 5 minutes. After awhile all went quiet. I figured the hen had led him away. I got out some thick gloves and repositioned myself. At 9:14 I heard him gobble again. This time real close and above the bench to my right. They were coming my way. I gave a few soft purrs and positioned for a shot to my right. another 4 minutes and he gobbled again, sounded about 50 yards but couldn't see anything. Then I saw his head against the white fog coming over the rise. I waited until he was 35 yards away and coming and shot him in the head. He rolled downhill a few yards and flapped. I saw the hen run off uphill.


Here's my setup. You can see my pack against the tree. That's where I was.



I've got one more tag and I'm going to try to get one with my recurve with my kids in a popup blind.