RE: Team 2 !!! "THUNDERSTRUT"
 

great man that is just great i will keep praying it seems they have been working so far and conrats on the bird i am going saturday with a friend and his dad

RE: Team 2 !!! "THUNDERSTRUT"
 

Congrats on both fronts Arjuna !

Are you in a one bird state, or can you try to better that one this year?

RE: Team 2 !!! "THUNDERSTRUT"
 

tschaef,
We can legally take 5 birds a year. I hope to get another, but I am proud of this one. I've hunted hard for 3 weeks and this is the only one I've put down. I'll take a little more time tomorrow to write up the story and send some pics.

Thanks again, everyone for the prayers.

RE: Team 2 !!! "THUNDERSTRUT"
 

Hey Arjuna, congrats on the bird, now were on the board,, I cant wait. Lets see the pics and hear the details.

RE: Team 2 !!! "THUNDERSTRUT"
 

saw the local hen yesterday and heard a very very messed up gobble in the afternoon and may have heard one a few minutes ago way way off but they were on both sides off the house so it is coming together i will be in the woods tomorrow and have the first shot at a bird.

RE: Team 2 !!! "THUNDERSTRUT"
 

Alright guys,...sorry I haven't told you the story or given the pictures yet. (I am a pastor and this is Holy Week...a very busy week for preachers.) Anyway, I just finished our Good Friday service, so I've got time to tell the story.

I had been hunting that bird since our season opened on 3/15. He lived on a tract of farm land in Hartford, AL. Here in Geneva County, the turkey density is probably in the lowest 5 % of the state. They just haven't had a sustainable turkey population for a while. The land owner has been intentional about deer, turkey, and quail management. He has about 3,000 acres of farm and hunting land. Many deer hunters, but only one turkey hunter, me!

He had been working this creek bottom with several hens. I hunted once each week, which meant that the first two weeks he made it. I hunted the chufa patch on the edge of a crp field the first day. He came up behind me at 15 yards in full strut, but I couldn't get around to shoot him. The next week he wouldn't come around the corner.

So, this time I set up on closer to him. I got in the edge of some 10 year old planted pines, where they met the hardwoods of the creek. There wasa farm road that went from the crp field across the creed to a cotton field. I set up at 5:30 (because I didn't want to spook him by getting so close) I didn't hoot or anything. I knew he was there. No decoys.

At 6:00 he gobbled. Then he gobbled again. ...and again. By 6:15 he had gobbled 35 times. By 6:30 he had gobbled 78 times. Then he hit the ground. All I had done was a fly down with my wing and a light cackle. I quit counting his gobbles when he hit the ground because I couldn't keep up.I promise I heard 150 gobbles in his last hour on this earth.

At 6:35 I yelped. He went 10 minutes without gobbling. I wondered where he was. I yelped twice (6:45). He "thunderstrutted."He must have been about200 yards away in thechufa patch I hunted two weeks earlier. Two hens came up the road from the creek. I knew this was a good sign, as they were leaving the gobbling tom. They walked up to 5 yards of me and then flew off when they saw me. I wasn't worried because the tom was too far away to see them take off.

I yelped one more time. 5 more minutes (6:50) a lone hen walked right past me at 8 yards and never gave the slightest concern. Then the gobbling came. I turned on the red dot. I pushed my safety over and set the gun on my knee.

At 6:55 my bird came around the corner. I checked his head. RED. I looked a the beard. LONG. BOOOOOM! (My first gun bird) He went down like a wet dishrag. That's when the other two toms came out from around the corner. They were at least as big as he was and had at least as long and thick beards. They went to whooping that bird like nothing I've ever seen. Feathers were going everywhere.I stood up. They looked at me and went back to kicking the crap out of my bird. So, I had to run them off. Now, I have a whole new perspective on what it means to kick a man when he's down.

Anyway, I guess those three birds could have combined for the 150 gobbles I heard. I don't know if mine was the boss or not. He was the lead bird, so he got it. I had waited too long to wait around and screw it up. I'm proud of him and now I know that next year there will be at least two more toms to go after.

20 lbs., 1" spurs, 10" beard. ...all exact (just like when your bill at wal-mark is exactly $20....weird)


Thanks for reading.

Pictures to follow soon.

RE: Team 2 !!! "THUNDERSTRUT"
 

Great story Jack. Congrats on the first "gun" bird. I am with you all the way when it comes to shooting a turkey. You best take a shot when you have it and not fool around---lest you regret it later as you watch that bird disappear over the horizon.

Congrats again!!

How 'bout you and I go after one of those two other birds before the season is out?

RE: Team 2 !!! "THUNDERSTRUT"
 

alright guys i got me on today on youth day hes a whopper i will pos tthe story in the main forum 18 and a half lbs 10 1/2 in beard and 1 in spurs


Your score is 18.5 + 10 + 10 + 21 = 59.5

RE: Team 2 !!! "THUNDERSTRUT"
 

Way to go Oneshot...congrats on the bird.:D Looks like we came to play this year.

RE: Team 2 !!! "THUNDERSTRUT"
 

Congrats to my two team mates on the success! I just got back from KS. and it was a successful trip. This late cold snap really put a damper on the action, but we had success before it got so cold. 4 of us bow hunted and we got 4 birds between us. One of my friends killed two long beards on the same stand one evening with his bow, and it's all on film. We all used the guillotines and all the shots were no more than 11 yards out of the doublebull blinds.
The calculatur says my score is 48.25 with measurements of 18.5#'s, 5/8" spurs, 8.5" beard. I missed my second bird that I got a shot at, BUT I'll be going back in a month and if it comes down to it, I'll break out the shotgun to get my second bird.
I'm going to try to post a couple of pics. which will show the exact set up that I was using when I killed my bird and you'll see a couple of jakes in the one pic. I had lots of opps. to shoot jakes, but refused to this early in the season. When my buddy killed his double, he was using a real hen decoy and a wounded tom decoy, but that same set up also spooked birds a couple of times. Seemed like no one set up works perfectly every time, and sometimes a guy ends up wishing he would've set up differently, BUT isn't that just how turkey hunting is! The tom I shot came in at about 4:30 p.m. I used a custom friction and a diaphram call to pull him in and he was all by himself. The two jakes in the pic. came in last and there were 3 other jakes with a single hen that also come into this set that same evening. The two jakes in the pic. stayed with us for over an hour!




Guess I've forgotten how to posts pics. If someone would help me out here, I can either Email pics. to someone or if someone can tell me what I'm doing wrong.!