Strut&Rut

Hi All,

I go out on Wednesday.

I took my son out last Friday (he wanted to hunt the 2 week private-land early season). We set up on private property and had birds gobbling hard off the roost. They had hens hard.

After about 45 min I managed to call in a satellite tom. He came into about 50 yards, gobbled 4-5 times, didn't see a hen (no dekes) and then high-tailed it back the way he came. I cut hard and he cut me off every single time, but he never returned.

30 min later here come a trio of longbeards - 2 sentries and 1 strutter. I told my son to take the strutter when he dropped his fan - he made a good shot and rolled him. Unfortunately, the birds were on a hidden rise about 45 yards away - we both thought the birds were at approximately 35 yards. His 20 gauge is a good 35 yard gun - the Triple Beard (5,6,7 shot) has a nice pattern at 45 yards (cause we tested it) but obviously not enough power at 46 steps. I suspect most of the pattern at that distance is the 7 shot, and pheasant load isn't gonna take out a 3yr old tom at 45 steps (ugh - #epicfaildad). I was sure he finally had his first bird, but only found feathers and no blood. He was bummed, and rightfully so, but I reassured him that he did absolutely nothing wrong, and that the bird was a prizefighter - he took a hard punch and then got up and ran off. I then told him all the stories of birds I've missed and sent him a few online articles from turkey gurus who also miss birds. He's got some self-doubt, but he's only 11 and will go out with me Wednesday to help me get a bird with the 12 ga.

Hopefully I'll have a big old Michigan farm bird on the board soon.

S&R

PS> Kelly- that's one hell of a season! BTW, white streaks up the center tail feathers on Easterns isn't uncommon - probably half my birds have those same white streaks...