My Dad finally got his turkey this morning. I wish I could have been there. I will tell this story though his experience. Here is a picture of our property and the set-up.
He started out with my twin brother and got in the blind before dark. They had the blind on the edge of the woods in the field pictured above(red arrow). The layout of the property for reference is that the top of the picture is north, bottom south. Just after sunrise a nice Tom Flew out of the trees and landed in the field at about 5:30am to the right of the blind. The set up they had out 4 hen decoys that you stake in the ground, 1 hen decoy that was moveable called the Expedite Edge Reel Turkey Motion Decoy, and 1 B-mobile full strut Tom decoy with real fan.
The tom was about 125yds away and started fanning. He was out in the field for several minutes, but never got closer. He was looking at the decoys but was very weary and finally moved off and went across the field into the woods. He was apparently not a dominant gobbler and was not going to challenge their tom decoy. My older brother had the same experience in season 1. He was using a similar set-up, but the toms he saw would not commit and were hanging up. After about 1 ½ hours some hen’s came out of the woods from the north/west corner of the field they were sitting in(green arrow). They were probably 70-80 yds away. Eventually a nice lone tom appeared and was following the hens. They were now at about 60 yds and were putting on a nice show. My Dad tried calling and calling to the birds with not much of a response. The tom was definitely hanging with the hens. Due to my brother’s challenges last week, they were wondering if maybe a Jake decoy would work better than the tom decoy. My dad started to pull on the cord of the Expedite Edge decoy and add some movement to the decoys. He was moving it very slow to get the head of the decoy to move up and down. Also, the wind started to pick up and move the staked decoys a little. That was all the tom needed to start working his way in. He closed the distance within 25 yds. My twin brother was filming the action as my Dad raised his gun. The tom was still moving in and was not fully stopped. BOOOM! Goes the Benelli Super Black Eagle 3 ½ with 2 ¼ oz Heavy 13. To my Dad’s amazement he missed and the turkey jumped up and moved a few yards away and stopped to figure out what the heck happened. That was his mistake and my Dad made a quick follow up shot and folded the turkey in his tracks.
The turkey is 23 lbs, 11 inch beard, 1 3/16 inch spurs.
