The hens finally moved off, that gave me a chance to tweak my setup a bit. Moved my blind back about 10 yds. Went in the house to grab a drink and use the bathroom, came back out to another tom gobbling to my north about 75 yds in the woods. He is hanging up in there and I am trying to call him in
He must have found the hens that worked away from me about a hour ago and is following them… hopefully they swing back through
Thanks everyone! That was fun, here’s a little recap. Got set up with a hen decoy at about 10 yds. After about ten minutes in the blind I hear a gobble about 100 yds away. Started calling and a few minutes later here comes a Tom on a trot right to me, I was at full draw on him but he didn’t stop for a shot and then kept trying to find the hen that was making all the ruckus talking with him. After that 2 hens came in and were feeding, scratching around, preening their feathers. They hung around for about an hour. I wanted to move my blind because of how they came in and also because of how the sun was hitting the blind. So once they moved off I quickly moved my blind back about 10yds, went to the house to get a drink and use the bathroom. As soon as I got back out there there was gobbling going on to my NE, sure enough about an 1/2 hour later a hen came back through and brought him with. 15 yd shot while strutting for the hen, he lost his head. It was a great morning to be out, the only downside is that I am now done….
Took CJ back out Sunday morning to try for a bird. His mom came with us too. We had celebrated Easter Saturday with family, so Sunday morning was our chance to do some turkey hunting. We started off on our property, did have a Tom with hens answer a couple times but they were moving away and didn't show much interest. I decided we would go over onto family property across from us, so we walked back to the pickup. As we were walking back we bumped a coyote, another one that was coming into the turkey sounds we were making. Definitely going to have to do some coyote calling soon. We got on the other side and headed for what I call the "back ridge". It always seems to hold turkeys and I've shot several on it over the years. Once we got to it I tried a few yelps. Nothing answered but we saw several deer moving through, so we waited and watched them cruise by. While watching them, two Jakes showed up behind us, not very often I've had turkeys come in quiet but they did and busted us. We moved south on the ridge another 150 yards and I tried some yelps again. This time a Tom gobbled back right away. We put the decoy out and got set up. The Tom answered well for the first 10 minutes or so, but then it answered less and less. A half hour in I decided that it must have hens, it was still in the same spot. We moved about 50 yards closer and tried again. It only gobbled back a couple times and then went quiet. I knew there was a big opening up ahead and figured that's where the bird was at, so I told CJ we were going to try to sneak up to the edge of the opening and hope we could get a shot at it. We approached the opening in good cover and found a spot we could peek out into the open area. We saw 3 Toms strutting, several hens off to the left of them, and as luck would have it, they were about 40 yards from us and hadn't noticed us. As we watched, one of the Toms drifted to the right, away from the other birds. I judged the distance to be around 37-38 yards. That is stretching a .410 shot with a new hunter but it was the best we were going to get. I whispered to CJ to hold right on the top of its head and take a shot when he was ready. At the shot the bird went right down. We headed out into the opening and birds were scattering. Then we saw a Tom and hen rushing off from where he had shot and I thought that it had gotten back up and was running. As we rushed to get past some trees to hopefully get another shot at it, I looked over and there laid his Tom. It was a different one rushing off! CJ had his first turkey! By the time the pictures were all taken my face hurt from smiling so much. I didn't weigh the bird but it was a good one, sporting a 9" beard. The side by side .410 he used was my dad's and it is the first shotgun I used in my youth as well.
