HuntingNet.com Forums - My second gobbler

I have tried 4 times to post my story. If this doesn't work I'm done.
We've been hunting northeast Missouri for the last 12 years or so and made some great friends there. This one guy only hunts deer and he has asked me to come over to hunt his property many times. After 3 years I decided I'd give it a try.

I woke up at 4 am, had breakfast and coffee, headed out to Johns place. Now I've never even been in his woods but as I was walking down this old logging road the turkey's started to gobble.I saw a downed tree and decided to nestle back up in there so as to be concealed. After I placed my 3 dekes out about 20 yards or so I retreated to fallen tree. These birds were gobbling like no bodys business. Legal shooting time here is around 5:30 am. Well guess what. At 5:29 and a half they stopped gobbling. Let me tell you it was only the calm before the storm.At one time there were 5 long beards talking to me. Boy was that exciting. Anyway I was really concentrating on this bird off to my right and with every gobble he seemed to get closer and closer. All of a sudden I heard this gobbler to my left. As I slowly turned my head in his direction I could see him in all his splender about 100 yards away just a strutting. He was really into his element, gobbling,those black feathers just shinning like crazy. He was fixated on my dekes but just keptfanning and strutting,not moving towards them. I raised my binocs to get a better picture of him and my heart was beating so hard the glasses were moving to every beat. All of a sudden he decided to come on down the hill. 100 yards, 90, 80, 70, oh crap I forgot that my gun was on the right side of this fallen tree limb and I had to move it to the left. I don't have any idea how I accomplished this without him seeing me. Any way he was really on the move. 60 yards, 50, 40 30, 20. At about 15 yards to my left I let my Ithaca model 37 featherlight in 12 guage with # 6 shot give him a final salute and he was mine.It was 6:30 am. I wish everone could experience something like this. It was wonderfull.

Spudrow from Mo