Living in an area with ten tag seasons and turkey sightings being the talk of the town, I need not say how limited our hopes were. However, we had a few birds on our trail cameras this winter n’ set out to try our luck.
Sat morning turned out to be a bust, nothing but rain and ditch parrots. I returned sat evening only to hear a few gobbles way down the river. My brother came out with me this morning and we headed out to a small field in the middle of the section. We set the dekes up 30 yards out in the field where an old snowmobile trail leaves the river bottom and climbed into the double bull. We had pretty high hopes that the turkey I heard would be roosting somewhere on the wooded hill off to our right. This did not prove to be the case however, as we heard a gobble still way farther down the river bottom.
After about forty-five minuets we started joking a bit and taking the whole turkey hunting thing alot less serious. After about an hour and a half this turned to nothing but sarcasm and smart a** comments about how we thought we had a chance in the rain, knowing nothing about turkey hunting, and not knowing how to call, less yet with our wet call that sounded so bad the ditch parrots weren’t even responding to it.
As we were accepting our defeat and were planning on picking up when my bro said he was going to try the call one last time. I sarcastically said back that if he called in a turkey with that thing I would get a full body mount (cause no way this call was doing anything but causing a mass critter evacuation). He smarts off back saying fine “I’m ganna make you eat your words,” and starts trying to dry off this slate call. He hits it and stops only to have a gobbler go off like 100 yards behind us. I grab my scatter gun off the ground and he hits the call again. This time the gobble is even closer n’ were like kids in a candy shop. He hits it again and nothing, and again for nothing. Every two or three mins he tries the call, and nothing for about 15-20 mins. This relinquishes the sarcasm and we begin smartin’ off about the whole situation again.
Just as the bro asks if I wanna head um or continue washing my clothes in the rain I look over n see a big ol’ tom just bombing into the field off the old trail. The bird had come out from behind his head when I was looking at him and was B lining it for our dekes. I said to him “holy *&^% he’s right there,” and he responded by wheeling around and tossing the two side flaps up saying (plain as day) ‘Na-uh dude.’ When he saw the bird, (who was doing the nazi march at our dekes,) he laid back in his chair n’ said, “Smash him.” I pulled the scatter gun up half way between the gobbler n’ the dekes and waited for his head to disappear behind my bead. As the blue n’ white slid behind the iridescent green bead I ………………. (mind you, this 3 1/2 hevi shot through the pattern master put 98 pellets of 6 shot in a 14×14 box at 50 yds). This ol’ tom, however, met his match at 28 yards and piled up in a cloud of mud spray.
We were just so shocked, surprised, and excited that we both jumped up (knocking the blind completely over) and were just freakin’ out like two teenage girls at an n’sync concert. We cruised out to the bird just as a bolt of lightening struck through the sky. We ran back n’ got one picture off before we jumped under the double bull due to a sudden down pour and with hail bouncing off our blind.
Despite the fact that I really had no interest in turkeys, other than adding another species to me belt, I must say that those few seconds of watching that bird come in had the same triggering response in my innate nature as every cupped up green head, every buck, and every flushing ditch parrot I’ve ever had.
This is, and will always be, a memory that I will never forget. Despite any pessimism or sarcasm I once had towards turkey hunting, I always knew it would only take one morning or one experience to hook an addiction. I do hope that all of you get the chance to hunt with someone close to you. It is an experience like no other. My brother and I have killed thousand of ducks and thousands of geese together, but it only takes one day doing something new to make a lifetime memory.
-For those of you who are just looking for the measurements… this tom ended up having 1 and 5/8” spurs, and an 11 1/4” beard. Like I said, I’m not a tropht turkey hunter by any means but from what enthusiasts have told me around here is that this is a really good bird. Not only am I a man of his word (sarcastically speaking in this degree or not) it is my first bird and a memory that I will never want to forget. The question is…. Would you get a full body mount or not? I mean as many birds as you may shoot you are only going to shoot your first turkey ever once…”
Meaning they have the spinner/bead/slip sinker on the line. That set-up is used to I can change to a quick strike rig or treble and still be legal 
Ill definately get some pics up when i get him back.