I'm soooo pumped!!! Yesterday afternoon I did a little scouting at this place I hunt. Not much sign, and I had my Lab along to spook 'em real good, but around 4:00 p.m. I came to a place, took a pee and thought I saw red. So I sat down and waited five minutes, then cutt loudly on a mouth diaphragm. (It was pretty windy.) I cutt a second time and got a gobble response. I yelped, gobble, yelp, gobble. In about a minute I was able to see two toms (two redheads) coming my way, one I named Jake, and one I named Tom. Tom strutted and gobbled, Jake even strutted a few times. I had my dog laying down behind me, and I hung on to his collar so he wouldn't charge at the turks if they got close. The pair came to about 30 yards from where I was sitting, peering in my direction through the sparse understory for probably 10 minutes. I didn't cluck or purr, because I really didn't want them to come any closer until next Monday, April 11th, when I'll be there with gun in hand!!

I patterned some 3 1/2" Federal HeavyWeight Mag Shok with Flite Control wads and #6 shot in my Mossberg 935 w/ Rhino choke on Saturday. If I don't get the shakes or suffer buck fever, any tom coming within 45 yards will be down for the count with one shot. The patterning was simply awesome!! At 45 yards about 20 pellets, on average, in the "kill zone" (spine and brain area) on a turkey target, plus many in the rest of the head, neck and body area. At close range, 15 yards, I still have a large number of pellets in all 4 quadrants of a 30" circle/target, plus a heavy concentration of pellets at the center of the target, so I should be able to shoot close as well, and not have to be too precise.

Can't wait for the 11th!!! Good luck, Team 4!!!