Tagged a State Land Boss Gobbler! PICS

Nick · April 25, 2006

For the 3rd season in a row, I managed to draw a tag on some state land close to home. The land gets hunted pretty hard but hold alot of birds. Today was opening day for my hunt in which I get 7 days to fill my tag. A guy I work with, Joe, got the same tag as me so we decided to hunt together today. I picked up Joe at 4am and we made the 45 minute drive to where we planned on starting our hunt. When we arrived we discovered a large turkey camp which consisted of two large 5th-wheel campers and 6 vehicles at the trail head. So we opted to go to the next trail about a mile and a half down the road.....This trail would take us to the same general location. We got in the woods well before daylight. The woods lit up and the critters began awakening........and it seems like the gobblers were the last critters to wake up this morning. We located about 4 or 5 gobblers roosted on a ridge and moved in. All but one flew away from us and the one that came down to us was hott. We didnt do but a series or two of calls and he was coming. The big tom showed himself at about 60 yards and strutted at that distance for a long time, then noticed something he didnt like and scooted. The birds seemed to gobble on and off all day long.......we set up 3 or 4 more times on birds but couldnt seem to have the trick to drag them off their hens. It got to be about 1pm and we werent having any luck finding a hott gobbler........We had been hanging out about a mile and a half into the 5 mile wide section of woods.....I told Joe "Im going to walk the trail right to the middle of the section by all the swamps". He didnt seem too enthused about going further in but tagged along most of the way. We walked about anothr 3/4 mile in and the swamp on the West of the trail had a high spot with a larger clearing. Joe decided he wanted to setr up in there and do some calling for a couple hours. I decided to journey another 1/2 mile up the trail to a small clear cut where I had seen birds the previous year. I plopped down against a tree and did a couple series of calls. I happened to glance to my left toward the trail and seen a hen. She came right into me within about 10 yards and milled around for awhile. she headed right straight away from me and I could see probably 60 yards. She disappeared for a minute then I seen her cut across the trail and when she crossed she had picked up two toms that I never seen nor heard!! I tried calling to them but got no reaction as I never seen nor heard them again. In the process of trying to bring them toms in, I got what sounded like 2 or 3 toms fired up on the other side of the swamp. I did a series of calls every 10 or 15 minutes and them buggers gobbled everytime and sounded like they were in the exact same spot the whole time which was only about 75 yards away. But there was just so much brush and water in between me and them that I knew there was no way I was going to call them across. So if they werent going to come to me....I decided I was going to have to go to them. I headed another 200 yards north up the trail to a clearcut on the West side of the trail. I headed West all the way to the back of the clearcut and did a locator call.......The toms gobbled and I was now evewn with them on the back side of the swamp...I just needed to cut out a few water holes between them and me without spooking them and I would be in business. I tip toed through the water and cut the distance to about 100 yards and sat down. I got my slate out and did a few purrs and they gobbled and not far away! I sat a few minutes and didnt call and finally picked out two full fans about 80 yards away. They strutted in a small sunny area for about 15 minutes then I decided to give out a couple yelps. They gobbled and the more dominant bird folded up and stood straight up and raised his wings into the air at the other tom......The smaller guy got the hint and headed into the swamp. The big gobbler slowly made his way toward my position, picking at the ground along the way. He got to about 40 yards and broke into full strut. He strutted back and forth slowly inching closer and closer.......He didnt get any closer than 30 yards and my patience ran out. I pulled the trigger and he dropped like a ton of bricks and began flopping.I ran over to him and put my foot on his head to keep him from getting away and he started kicking so i reached down to get his legs under control and my finger found out what it feels like to get spurred by big sharp spurs! I tagged him and decided to take a short cut back to the trail. I cut right through the center of the swamp. I got about 1/2 way across the swamp and BOOM!!! I knew it was Joe who had shot. I slowly made my way back to Joes location and found he bagged a nice tom as well. I shot mine at around 3:30pm and he shot his about 4:00pm. Joes bird was 23lbs 10 1/2" beard and 7/8" spurs. Mine was 25lbs 10 1/2" beard and a whopping 1 3/8" spurs! Not too bad for a days hunt on public land eh? Heres some pics....

Me and my buddy fat Joe with our turkeys.

And the good ole back yard pics.

And the hooks.

toddyboman · April 25, 2006