All You, Dear!

…Saturday morning found my wife and I sharing the turkey woods together – what an amazing morning…birds weren’t roosted exactly where we thought they would be, but they sure were in the mood to sing & they liked what Leslie was telling them with her box call…

…at first the gobblers were clumped together – but once on the ground they split up well…especially after a couple of fights with each other…my favorite part was that the gobbling rarely lapsed for any length of time & Leslie kept them interested in us…

…things got exciting when we realized that at least one bird was getting closer to our set-up, though he had quite the ways to come…we nicknamed him “‘The Mumbler” because of his distinct muffled & slurred gobbles…he talked to us for quite some time before showing himself over a 100 yards away in the cornfield in front of us…he put on a show at that distance, puffing and gobbling for our fake hens, likely wanting them to join him…when he finally broke our way – we were pumped!…

…Leslie kept on him with her trusty box call and he gobbled darn near every time to it, sometimes more than once…took a little convincing to get her to hold off on the yelping from time to time – a tom cannot close the distance very quickly when they have to stop every third step and gobble…though, when Leslie let him take a step or two, it was on a straight line to us…

…as “The Mumbler” closed in to 60 yards we both were beyond excited…when another big tom suddenly appeared from our right, heading in our direction, my heart rate increased from an already rapid pulse…he too was close to 60 yards away – as was the lone hen he was following…Leslie had some convincing to do as the hen did her best to get the big boys to circle our hiding spot…

…at first the hen won the battle, getting the toms to side-slip us just out of range…but Leslie was not to be foiled this morning and she played it well – mixing in some quiet time with some good excited runs on her call…after some convincing the duo of gobblers decided to swap the live hen for our decoys…pretty soon the toms were closing in on us quickly – it was going to happen…I whispered to Leslie that we were going to get the chance at a double on these birds – her response, “But I only have one turkey permit!”…

…uh, dear, I’m turkey hunting, too…

hershy