RE: Has this happened to you.
First longbeard I shot at...I had killed two jakes and was on a junior turkey hunt about 5 years ago and was going after my first long beard....make a long story short...belly crawled up a very large steep hill to a bowl at the top...peeked over a rock and noticed a 25lb tom struttin his stuff....lemme tell you...this twelve year old about crapped his pants! Beard was draggin....prolly 12". It was at about 28-30 yds. Problem was...this was a semi-guided hunt...guided by volunteer veterans. My 870 had a problem chambering shells so i had to use the guides benelli nova. This is no excuse for not killing the bird but....it may be a reason. Well he gave me the gun which i later found out had a plain modified choke in it. It was loaded with 3" 5's but only 2 SHOTS. this is totally my fault since I did not check to see if it was fully loaded. Well Anyways...I took the shot and rolled that tom...it came rolling down the hill and came to a stop about 15 yards in front of me. I was SO excited. Well as soon as my dad got up the hill...the damn thing took off and started running STRAIGHT towards me....so what did I do? Put shot number two into him. He rolled right to my feet...literally...he hit my foot. At this time he got up after a second jumped into the air and took flight...he landed in the tree right above my head...so what did i do....i pulled up and took shot number three....wait...there was NO SHOT NUMBER THREE. needless to say that bird took off and never saw it again. I was terribly upset...not for not baggin the bird...but for leaving the bird wounded out there. I knew it would probably not survive. Let me tell you...one upset 12 year old...