Three's a charm

[Guest psefirestormlite]

I can say that this year has been my best year turkey hunting ever and I did not get to go that many times as I have in the past.

This weekend I was supposed to go with a buddy of mine to some private property in Washington county, MD and try to call him up a bird. well, at the last moment on Friday he calls me saying he can't go... I was looking forward on going turkey hunting for the last time of the year and this happens. so I decide what the hey.. I still Have a tag in WV and MD and I have a good bit of public hunting land around me and knowing that later on in the season hunting pressure is pretty low on public land ( which think I is the best time of the season to bag a big ole tom). Picked three places I would like to go Monacacy River (hunted there once this year and called in two nice looking toms but, the closest they ever got to me was about 60 yards). Frederick county watershed (scouted there and saw a good bit of sign but never hunted it), the last place was going to be Shannandale in WV ( Hunted there several times in the past and always had luck calling them in but for some reason I always choked or did something wrong to spook the toms. put the three names in a hat and picked one ... I picked monacacy and got everything ready to go there in the morning. Got up at about 3:45 and got ready to go. In my mind I was still debating on were to go b/c my gut was say go hunt the mt birds in shannandale. Got in the truck and made a last minute decision and headed to the Shannandale. Well I arrived at the location and there were no vehicles at the spot were I wanted to go, got my stuff together and went for a mile walk in the woods to were I have had toms roost in the past. sat back and just listened b/c I had owl hooting all around me.. Then around 5 I had my first gobble, he was about a quarter mile away from me and started his way. stopped to catch my breath and try to pinpoint the toms location and I here another one, he was at the direction I just came from. Decided to stick with the first tom and if all fails head to the other tom. This guy was gobbling from the roost about every 3 to 5 minutes. Took my time getting to him and I ended up setting up at a open spot in the woods about 80 to 100 yards from the tom, he was on the other side of a dip in the Mt. Got settled in and let him gobble a couple more times and decided to give him a couple light purrs and he responded. Around 5:30 I called one more time and made it sound like I was flying of the roost and he went crazy. He was quite for about 5 minutes and then I herd him on the ground about 60 yards above me, did some light yelps and purrs directing them the opposite way from me and sat still and waited him down. he gobbled one more time and this time he was about 50 yards above, I angled myself for the shot between the decoys (jake and hen) that were to the right of me about 25 yards and the tom to my left. Just the way I wanted it I saw him walking to the decoys and waited for him to pass my shooting lane. He stopped right at my shooting lane and was looking at the decoys moving b/c of the wind and I shot and dropped him at about 20 yards. It was an awesome feeling having a plan go the way you want it to go. This is my second bird that I have killed off of the roost and he was a Dandy for a mountain bird. He weighed 18 lbs and had a nice 11" beard with some worn down 3/4" spurs. All in all this has been a great year for me and the one thing that has helped me this year would be ...Go with your gut feeling and never rush and for some reason hunt solo.

P.s. for the first time this year I forgot my camera so these pics are in my garage