I was twelve years old when the best day turkey hunting happened that I have ever had. My dad and I had sat this spot several consecutive years. we killed turkeys every time. My dad would not let me take my call there for fear that I would overcall. Well, he decided to leave me there and walk across the woods to the green fields. It had not ben three minutes after he left, and I saw the flashing of wings coming down on the other side of the field. I got so worked up that I could not hardly contain myself. I started to shake. I still get excited when I see a turkey now, but not like I used to. Anyway, I had a decoy out and I could tell that there was a couple of jakes out there. I got the binocs up and I started counting. More and more turkeys came out of the woods. I started wanting to call them in, then I remembered that my turkey call was in the truck! They started to head back into the woods so I knew that I had to do something and do it quick! I started softly calling with my mouth and all of a sudden the field erupted in gobbles! I called louder and louder until they started to come. By that time I had counted 15 jakes and 9 toms. That was amazing. It was the first turkeys that I had ever called in and I did it with my mouth! I quit calling once they got within 50 yards. They kept gobbling and kept creeping closer slowly until they were less than 10 yards from me. There was fighting, and strutting all around. The jakes were the only ones that came within shotgun range though, so I waited until one stuck Its head up then I let it rip. It was less than 10yards when I shot and it just rolled. The special thing that made that hunt be my favorite is that it was my first turkey that I had killed onmy own. I could go with dad and kill one every time, but he always told me that I really became a turkey hunter when i could sit alone and kill a turkey. That was and still is my best turkey hunting experience.

I would like to hear your best turkey hunting experience if you care to share it. My favorite part of turkey hunting is sharing the hunt. I hope you guys enjoy it too.

Oh man I don't know where to start.
The one that really stands out is when my buddy(who got me to start hunting turkeys) shot his first one.We walked through this big clear cut and to the edge of the woods when we heard one sounding off.I still remember the time.It was 6:11am.We walked about 100 yards in the woods till we were about 75 yards from him.We sat out a jake and hen decoy and I told him to watch in the direction of the turkey and I would watch over the decoys.We made a few calls and he quit gobbling.I knew he was on the ground but had no idea where.It was so quite in woods you could have heard an ant sneeze.The next thing I heard got me totally hooked on turkey hunting.PPPHHHHTTUUUUUUUUUUUUUMM PPPHHHHTTUUUUUUUUUUUUUMM.When he started his spittin and drummin it actually made the hair on my legs stand on end.I knew he was real close but I didn't want to turn my head and spook him since it was right in front of my buddy.I asked him if he could see it and he said he was 40 yards.Then the gobbler must have seen the decoys and started coming in.I could hear him walking in the leaves and it kept getting louder and louder and louder and then BOOOOMMMM.I jumped up and turned to see where the bird was and beat my buddy to it.He shot it at 23 yards.It was so hard for me to just sit there and not see the turkey and have him drumming like crazy.That was the loudest drumming I ever heard.I absolutely loved that hunt.I was just as satisfied as he was if not more.

Great storys guys,, I've had so many myself i'm not sure what ones are the best , but one that sticks in my mind is the hunt last spring when Jalvja and Scrapper1 and I walked into a place here in Ontario and we called in a small group of Jakes. The boys had never shot a Ontario bird and we had 2 tags a peice, so They had the shots if wanted. All of us has shot enough birds over the years that trophies didn't really matter. As the birds worked into range the guns started to go off Bang! , Bang! , the rest of the birds turned and started to walk away and I said what the heck Bang! 3 birds in one setup. I still got the biggest beard , It was a great moment 3 internet friends all togeather get a chance, to walk away with a bird over the shoulder...BT

I agree Adrian,That's gotta be my favorite hunt where I shot.Watchin my son Jake shoot his first turkey this fall was my biggest thrill watchin someone else shoot.

My favorite hunt may be when I called in one for a friend. I killed my first longbeard on opening morning and it was a made for TV hunt. Two birds came in gobbling from about 150 yards out. The gobbled dozens of times came in strutting and drumming side by side. I took mine at 7 yards after they beat up my jake decoy.
That was so much fun I called my buddy up and told him we had to hunt the next morning. He didn't need his arm twisted so we're off the next morning. We drive half and hour and he pulls out a Benelli Montefeltro with an engraved nickel plated receiver![] He says all he had at the house was this gun with a IC choke! (His other guns were at his his hunting cabing in another county.) He's got some type lead duplex load he's big on so off we go. We spend the first 45 minutes listening to gobbling in the distance, but nothing near us. We walk about a half mile down a logging road and stop and I do a few yelps. Two gobbles about 80 yards away! We quickly set up on opposite sides of the road with his back to the birds coming in. They came on a rope and in less than 3 minutes we have two longbeards coming out of the timber and onto the road. The strutter slides down a small embankment and rushes ahead of his partner in his eagerness to find that sweet hen (me).
My buddy didn't see him until he's about 12 yards away and he swings and takes the bird with a quick shot. No flopping...just dead...with that Improved Cylinder choke no less! The second longbeard does his impression of an olympic sprinter (because we have a one bird limit I couldn't take a gun).
My first gobbler was awesome. Sharing a friend's first gobbler and being a part of it was even better.

Those are amazing stories and I am glad that you guys took the time to share them with me. I am glad to see that there are other turkey enthusiasts that enjoy turkey hunting at least as much as I do. A lot of people think that I am crazy because I like turkey hunting so much. I would ten times rather be sitting there when a big tom comes into the open strutting and gobbling than to have a deer quietly slip through the woods near me. I guess that it is just the excitement of knowing that you and the gobbler are interacting and he is riled up to breed. I do love deer though, it just has it's time.

Turkey Blaster, I know what you mean about turkey hunting being addictive. I started hunting deer back in 1972 and turkeys in 1986. It would be a tough decision if I had to pick just one. The following are two of the many experiences I've had in the turkey woods.

On my first hunt of last spring, I was off to Wisconsin with two of my hunting partners. I Called in two gobblers for a buddy who only had a day and a half to hunt. He missed the shot and we had a few other birds in close but offering no shot for him.
After the 2nd day of hunting, we were kickin' back at our host' s house and the Minnesota Wild were playing hockey so needless to say it was a 2am night and two less hunting partners the next morning. It had rained most of the night before but had subsided to a damp windy morning. Not too windy to where you couldn' t hear them though. I walked along the edge of the woods walking down a trail cut for horse riding. I took out the Quaker Boy Grand Old Master and cranked it up as I went along. I finished around about the bottom end of the field as it was like one big funnel and the gobblers always seem to take the hens that way to mate in the mornings. I found a big oak set away from the edge of the field about 15 yards and along with the brush there it made for a good blind. I setup two hens with one close to the ground out from a clearing in the brush and then setup a buckwing struttin jake decoy right behind her so it looked like he was about to get some. Once I hit my seat against the tree, I heard him gobble. He was coming from beyond where I was on that trail. It drops off there to a logging road which leads to the valley below. They seem to roost there during bad wind and/or rain. He then gobbled again closer and soon appeared above me. He was in no hurry to come in and half fanned back and forth above me. I was wondering if I' d run into another decoy shy bird when he finally started down towards the dekes. I lost him thru the brush but started to hear his spit drummin' as he came still closer. I was straining to see him but nothing yet. I figured that I might have to wait for him to fan away and that is the way it went. I caught sight of him when he was about 5 feet from the dekes and I didn' t dare move a muscle. He approached the jake and then made a quick jump and stomped the decoy into the ground! I' m sure he was startled by the feel of the jake and was on high alert. He swung to my left thru the brush as I shouldered the black Remington and I fired. Down he went and I quickly scooted over to him. Wow, that was definitely an exciting morning and one that I' ll remember for a long time. He weighed 24 lbs and was my first double beard. 9.5in and the 2nd one being half that size and he had some nice spurs as well.

I couldn' t have asked for a better way to end the season than on my 2nd hunt which took place in MN a week later. I arrived at my destination in SE Minnesota on Thursday evening after pushing it hard to make it there before dark. That way I could put a bird to bed and get a leg up on the first day. I pulled in the driveway and Dave was working on his tractor. Just as I got out of the truck a gobbler sounded off. Dave pointed to the hillside across from his driveway. I headed on over there and heard the gobbler again several times. He was roosting below a rocky outcropping on a hillside above a field.

The next morning I was out the door about 5:00am and he was gobbling not long after that. I slipped across the road and up the hillside along the edge of the field taking my time and figuring out a good spot to setup. That is one aspect of my hunting that I really want to work on so I took some extra time and found a big oak that was about 10 yards off the field and slightly above so that I had a good view in all directions. I setup, snipped some brush, and pulled out my slate call. I yelped a few times and was answered immediately with a few gobbles. This bird was hot and gobbled almost continously for awhile. I clucked a few more times a little later and he gobbled some more. I shut up and figured he would either choose to come my way or get a better offer somewhere else. About 15 to 20 minutes passed and I then I heard his wingbeats as he flew out of the tree. I then heard the loud whoosh of air flowing thru his wings as he flew over above my right shoulder. I froze as he went by figuring he' d fly down over the hill and land. Instead, he flapped his wings and set down about 30 yards out in front of me. I didn' t have the gun up yet and had to calm myself and say " Let' s just see what he does next" . Well, he let out a thunderous gobble that had that deep low sound they make when they are close to you. My plan was to move every time he gobbled and it worked out just right. It took about 10 gobbles and the Remington was at my shoulder and beaded. Boom!!! He went @ss over tea kettle and the hunt was over. I was shaking a little and weak in the knees as I got up to trot over to him. The hunt was over at 6:05am and I was heading for the farmhouse. He was a nice bird weighing in at 23.5 lbs and had about a 10 in. beard. In a way, I was sad to leave the woods as it signaled the end of another season. I' m already thinking about next season!!

I've only taken three birds and have only been turkey hunting for 2 years. My most memorable hunt was the first one I'd ever been on. My buddy talked me into going, which wasn't hard, and said he knew where a nice tom roosted. Anyway, we got there before daylight and he got out his owl hooter call and the bird said nothing. He tried again...still nothing. I told him to let me try and I hooted with my mouth and the tom sounded off. Man my hair stood up on end. That was the first time I'd ever heard a wild turkey gobble. Well, with high expectations and a bundle of nerves we cut across a pasture and into some select cut timeber close to the birds. We wound up too close and the wary tom had his neck stuck out and had us pegged. I saw him on the roost and got my buddies attention and we backed out and sat down behind some brush. As we were setting there, the tom started strutting on his perch and gobbling his head off. We watched and listened to hens and other gobblers that were all around us. Needless to say I was hooked on that first day. It turned out we were both watching a gobbler in the same tree, but there were two of them. As daylight came on and the birds flew down, we counted 6 gobblers and 16 hens. They all flew to a hilside where we sat and watched them fight, scratch, mate, yelp, and gobble until it plum hurt. I didn't get a bird that day, but I took to turkey hunting much to my wife's dismay. Took a lot of money to get into, but I'm not through and its been worth every cent.



Gun control? My gun. My control.

A favorite scouting experience was when a gobbler challenged me to a fight. If I didn't have a camera, I wouldn't tell the story. Took place in '96:

I took my wife on a morel hunt on a Sunday into a new patch of woods that I could hunt, thinking of scouting and finding a few shrooms to boot. (no Sunday hunting in MD). About 10 am, I give a toot on my tube call and got a hard gobble. The wife is a non-hunter, but an understanding soul, so I decide to give up the gob (never call in a gob that you want to kill later) just so my wife could see what it's all about. Two gobs came running in, one spooking right off the bat as we were not in camo. The other one came in and gave us a great display:



The one gob strutted, and kept coming in closer and closer and closer. The wife knows to sit still, and the bird came in and circled the two of us, so close I could have kicked it - that is my knee in this pic.



After circling us, gobblin' his brains out. I slipped a mouth call in and did aggravated purrs to get a reaction. He got so close I was getting nervous:




The bird gobbled, but tired of the game and continued on his way; I told the wife I was going to "educate" him: I ran at the turkey when he was ~35 yds away and he unexpectedly went back into strut!


The bird started aggravated purring, I continued my purring, and we started to circle each other. Well, I've seen knock-down turkey fights and knew what was coming next - wing beats and spurring. I've wrestled cannon-netted gobs before in trap-n-transplant operations, and I did not want to engage in a fair fight. I ran to a tree and the bird kept chased me around a tree as I snapped pics:



I had snapped most of a roll, and I yelled to my wife to come and get the camera. When she stood up, the bird stopped in his tracks, gave a loud alarm putt, and ran away. I was wearing a black T-shirt at the time - he no doubt treated me as a rival. When I suggested to the wife that I'd come back with my bow the following day, she told me that if I killed that bird, she'd never eat turkey again. I never did go back...

-fsh