For most of this season I've been hunting a relatively large piece of wooded hillside in SW Michigan. In March, the landowner (who doesn't hurt turkeys) counted 8 longbeards, 10 jakes and 30+ hens next to his feeder. My son rolled a big bird in April, unfortunately the 46 yards were too much for his 20ga and the bird got away.
I've passed up at least 3 shots in the past few weeks, my most recent on Monday. Yesterday I pushed a few strutters out of their strut zone, and then we played yoyo for about an hour. I had to leave at prime time (~9am), and then came back yesterday afternoon and proceeded to bump 3 different longbeards from the same strut zone. I went back this morning, where the woods were quiet until about 7:30. I struck up a gobble, did a quick move, and at 9am had two big strutters at 60 yards. Unfortunately I had set up against a blow down with no deke, and the birds hung up and worked themselves around me. I came home to do yardwork, my plan was to head back tonight about 4:30 for an evening hunt.
At ~3:30 my neighbor texts, "Turkeys in field". I asked 'Beards?" He responds, "at least 2". "I'll be right over!"
I literally walk across the street and we talk for a few minutes. He tells me where the birds entered the field and the direction they headed, and that through his binos he could see there were 2 gobblers and 2 hens. He has 10 acres of property, 9.5 of field that he tells me was freshly planted with corn, the birds are working the field for food.
He has absolutely no hedgerow, so head out from his house and work myself down the side. Even though he has no hedgerow for me to work, the neighbors run their woods to the property line, so I'm well concealed when I'm non my knees. I get 25 yards and see a periscope a good 200 yards away, so I drop my strut seat and go prone - I realize I can't see the birds - which means they can't see me. I start to belly crawl...
I get 10 yards and drop my vest. Another 5 and there goes the thermocell. The hen periscope goes down and I see a fan pop up, about 250 yards away in a little dip in the field. His buddy is another 30-40 yards further away, half-strut but mostly working the field for bugs/food. An hour earlier it poured, so the field edge was nice and moist, and there was a stiff 15mph wind right in my face. The birds couldn't hear or see me, so I decided to keep belly crawling until I was within 75 yards, at which point the hill crests and I'll be blown.
I managed to cover the ground pretty quickly, and after reaching my destination pushed it 10 yards further. I let out a series of soft clucks and the non-strutter started his way over, drawing the strutter with him. They worked 25-30 yards towards me and then turned towards the woods, at this point about 25 yards from the trees. The strutter separates himself from the other tom, giving me my chance. The gun and red dot already centered on his head, I let out a loud cluck - he responds on cue, comes out of strut and I drop the hammer. The Longbeard XR dropped him like a stone at 51 steps.
Great hunt and my MI season is over. I hunted those woods for 9-10 days with lots of close calls - I hunted my neighbor's field for literally about 45 mins and filled my tag. It's why you gotta love Spring turkey hunting - you literally never know when it's gonna come together...
For May 20 he was still a pretty big bruiser weighing in at 21.2 pounds. The longest strand of his paintbrush was 9.5, left spur 7/8 right spur 1.0. NWTF score was just shy of 60 at 58.9...