This morning my fiance’, Wendi, and I stood in the dark out in a field and waited for the thunder to start. When we heard our first gobble we unknowingly headed off to create a memory that will last a lifetime.
The toms we were keyed in on were hot so we snuck along the edge of the woods as close as we dared until we realized we were too close! The hills in this area are deceptive where sound is concerned. The birds sounded like they were on the next hill when in reality they were just over the hill and what we were hearing was their echo.
We backed off about 50 yards and got the decoys set up. We were in the southeast corner of a corn field and the toms were straight north. Wendi was set up on the eastern side of the field and just inside the woods and I was on the southern side of the field facing north and directly toward where the toms were roosted. The decoys (2 hens and a tom) were positioned between me and the toms and straight west of Wendi.
The weather was perfectly calm and the moon was still bright in the sky while we waited for the right time to start calling. I started with some soft clucks and purrs. I worked them into an absolute frenzy! They would gobble and then other toms would gobble in the distance and they would get other birds going until every bird in the valley got so worked up it almost sounded like a constant rumble in the valley below and on the hillsides surrounding it.
It wasn’t long until a hen to my right started sounding off. That’s when I started in on the yelping. Every time she would call I would cut her off! I decided she wasn’t going to call these birds away from us and ruin our hunt so I hammered on her louder and more aggressive with each sequence of yelps! After each set of yelps the toms would sound off so loud you could hear the gobbles reverberating off their chests! That’s when I knew it was going to get exciting.
Suddenly the gobbling stopped. They were on the ground. The question was did they pitch down on top of the hill to come pay us a visit or did they go down hill to the hen. I quit calling for a while and waited for the toms gobble. They sounded off after a short wait and “YES!” they were still on top.
I did just enough calling to keep them interested and each time they gobbled they were closer until I could hear them spitting. Suddenly I could see their tails coming just over a little hill on the other side of the decoys from me. Shortly after I saw the tails there was a loud “BANG” and one of the toms dropped and Wendi went running out in the field after him yelling, “WOO HOO!!!”. I got up on my feet and ran over to her and we did a big high five and lots of hugging. Shortly afterward we got a text message from my buddy Brian asking if that shot was ours. I sent one back saying, Yes, and he’s a dandy! Twenty minutes later he sent another text saying he was done, too! He even managed to get his on video!
All I can say is it was a morning I won’t soon forget…
The picture of the decoys is from the exact location the tom was standing so it was the last vision he had until Wendi put the hammer down on him!
She has two weeks to heal up before the hunt! 
