Sure wish I could count this one for the team. I called this one in for my wife's 13 year old cousin Jackson Saturday morning using a couple of my own handmade Southern Strut calls, a double sided glass over slate and the most perfect sounding diaphragm call I named the Beard Bandit. Today was opening day of the youth weekend and also Jackson and his dad's first turkey hunt ever. At 22 lbs with a 10.5" beard and 1" spurs, this nice mature gobbler scores 63. He only gobbled 5 times total, 3 times early and 2 times after he closed in on us at about 100 yds. After an hour of silence from the time he flew down, I backed us up the hill a little bit and hit some excited yelps and cuts on the mouth call. He hammered from down in the creek bottom. I hit it once more and he gave us another strong gobble. We backed up even further, about 40 more yds, and I gave him a few more series of yelps aimed in the direct opposite direction from the bird. With no response that time I still knew he was coming, so I purred and scratched a little bit in the leaves, and a few minutes later he walked right up into our lap to a Browning Burial. His dad and I sure were excited for him, but I do think I spoiled our new little turkey hunter a little bit by making it so easy for him
. I was just happy to get out of the office and into the woods for a great opening morning. I’m ready to get after ‘em for myself starting Thursday! Good luck to everybody else and STAY SAFE!
The Tools of Persuasion
