I finally got him! This past spring, I had several close cat n’ mice experiences with this tom, but he always found a way to escape death. The last day of spring archery hunt, I had been working him for about 45 min. He got within probably 30 yds behind me (guessing by gobble volume), All of a sudden, a stinking coyote came busting out of woods in front of me, running at my decoys. Yes, tom must have seen it and vanished. Fast forward, I’ve been working him this fall, figuring out his path from roost to food. Sat in the rain sun am, and the turkeys went crazy from roost. I got to hear every possible sound a turkey makes, even 2 gobbles (though they were short ones). very strange. I thought this could be the “magical” day. They kept vocalizing for about 20 min longer, then went silent. I never got to see them. I snuck out mon aft and saw saw them in corn. It was weird in that I saw one strut in there, no idea why. Finally they came out, and came directly by me heading to roost. I locked on to one of the toms at 28yds and let it rip. He smacked ground, another tom immediately kicked him. This tom leaped up & flew straight up into tree about 15 feet up( with my arrow stuck thru it). 2 seconds later it dropped directly down into thick hillside. whoa, what just happened? I waited about 30 min, just in case. Finally, crept in to retrieve, to my surprise, he must have hit ground and run an additional 10 yds. I finally was the winner! It’s amazing how tough those rascals can be.
October 24, 2013 at 1:02 pm
#211635
