One Less Tom in Ontario


Guest NorfolkHunter

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Guest NorfolkHunter

My friends that I was hunting with had both tagged toms on the opener. Friday it was my turn. smile.gif

The morning was very, very clear. I was identifying constellations as I made my way to my setup location.

I placed my decoys out in the corn stubble field and selected a big old maple as my place to sit and wait. With every minute my decoys were becoming more visible. I ranged my jake decoy at 22 yards as I waited for the first gobbles of the morning.

It didn’t take long and I heard a thunderous gobble from the ridge line. This gobble initiated all of the other birds to sounds off. Next was his neighbour on the ridge, then another directly behind me and three more across the field. That placed me in the middle of at least 6 different gobblers.

After a little time had passed I picked up my Gobblestalker pot and striker. I gave a few soft yelps and immediately was answered by one of the ridge runners. That was good enough for me. I set down the call and waited for fly down.

Two hens entered the field. One came directly into my decoys while the other fed across the field. I was hoping the curious hen would have a love sick tom in toe but that wasn’t the case. She followed the field edge until she decided to cut behind me only 5 yards away.

The hen in the field was joined by another hen. The one gobbler was closing the distance along the ridge. Every minute or so he would gobble giving away his location and direction. Two jakes entered from the far end of the field and started making their way towards the feeding hens.

With a few purrs and soft clucks I was answered again. Within 10 minutes the gobbler was just out of sight inside a little pine thicket. I’m sure he could see the birds out in the field and he wanted them to come to him. He was working back and forth in the pines gobbling his head off. I decided to wait him out.

15 minutes later and nothing had really changed. The 4 birds in the field had started to make their way towards my decoys and the one in the pines was still gobbling every minute. Suddenly I heard something behind me. I slowly gazed over my shoulder and I could make out a bird 15 yards directly behind me. The bird started walking towards a driveway through the woods. I turned a little more to get a better look and now there were two birds, two longbeards. They had come in silent and almost caught me off guard.

They made their way onto the driveway and started move in the direction of the fired up tom. When the two birds got behind a clump of trees I did a quick 180 to one knee and shouldered my Remington. The first tom made the big mistake of taking that last step beyond the safety of the trees. That’s when I squeezed off the trigger sending a spread of #4’s at his head.

The pictures explain the rest. What an exciting hunt, another one for the books. Going to try and fill my second tag with the bow. It should extend my season considerably. laugh.gif

Here are a few pictures. Nice bird 22lbs. 3 oz., 9 7/8" beard and 1 1/8" spurs. My largest tom to date.

GobbleStalkerGobbler.jpg

Driftwoodtom.jpg

Two of his tail feathers had white marks on them. I don't believe that I have saw that before?

Frostedtail.jpg

NH

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