Finally after 4 seasons!

I was invited to tag along with a good friend of mine and his brother, Bob and Mike Moelter from Eau Claire. They had been out during Wisconsin’s 4th season last week and had some success in locating birds but couldn’t close the deal. So when they invited me to come along Saturday morning I couldn’t say no. It would be Mike and myself heading to a spot where the morning before they reported "tons" of gobbling. So needless to say I was pretty excited for the activity to begin. We were set up in a small ravine where we would be protected from the wind. I figured the birds would make there way there being it was nice and quiet and a good place to strut. Well as day break came we could only hear a distant gobble from behind us and over the ridge. The "tons" of gobbling from the day before were no where to be heard! Although we heard nothing close to us, I remained optimistic that the birds were there.

Well it was 6:45 now when we heard a distant shot from across the valley….did Bob and his brother-in-law Chuck score? It was 15 minutes later when I received a text…"Chuck rolled one over the hill but couldn’t find". Sorry for your bad luck Chuck….stick with it and you’ll get yours. Turkey’s have to be one of the toughest birds out there for sure! After hearing the shot and sitting for another hour, Mike decides he needs to stretch the legs. After we scan the field for birds he stands up for a few minutes. We talk quietly about where the birds might be and a possible game plan for later in the morning when out of the corner of my eye I catch a bird flying….a nice tom flew in from our right and right over our set. He disappears around the corner of the field and lands in a valley to our left. Figures!! Anyway, I’m confident the bird didn’t see Mike as we were positioned under a huge oak tree with plent of cover. Mike resumes his seated position and the waiting game begins.

It’s been 45 minutes since the tom flew over and we have nothing to show for it but a hen 300 yards below us in the valley. She does keep us entertained as we watch her do circles trying to figure out her next move. Meanwhile, as we are watching her I make a few calls to see if we can get a response but nothing. As we begin to formulate a plan of attack for 10:00 I decide one more call with the box call to see if I can’t get a response in the wind. As I’m in the middle of the sequence Mike says to me, "Did you hear him?" I tell him no and try it again…this time I did hear him…he’s to our right coming off the ridge. So we settle in hoping he will come and check out B-Mobile and our submissive hen set up. (Purchased B-Mobile and the hen the night before). I begin to make some soft clucks and purs when all of a sudden we realize the gobbling was coming from our left! I look over and see two hens about 100 yards away but no tom. Then after 5 minutes he appears in full strut…keeping one eye on his hens and the other on B-Mobile. Well the hens decide they want no part of our set up and walk directly down the ravine to the bottom…and you know who is following behind! We can only sit and watch as he slowly begins to disappear over the hill about 200 yards out. Game is over right? WRONG!!! I can barely see his tail feathers when all of a sudden here he comes back. Did he lose his hens? Is he finally responding to the calls? I guess I don’t care at this point…he is on his way.

At this point I get Mike prepared for anything…the hens could be coming or he’s going to be running into our set looking for a fight. After a few tense moments when he walks out of sight, one of the hens appears at 70 yards over the hill. She is walking directly below us now and I can see the other hen now too…she is about 300 yards and walking away. We got the hot hen to come over towards us! Now all we need is for the tom to follow her path. After a couple of minutes he does just that. In full strut he appears from behind the hill…looking for his hen. Then after some soft calling, he spots our set and B-Mobile. That’s all it took and he was on a string right towards him. I told Mike to let him come all the way in and we would see what he would do. He made it to about 15 yards when he spotted something he didn’t like…I know neither one of us moved but he wasn’t comfortable with the situation so he tried to exit stage left. That’s when a couple of calls slowed him down long enough for Mike to put the hammer down on him at about 45 yards! Mike’s 1st tom in four years of hunting was laying on the ground! Congrats Mike on your first ever tom. And thank you for letting me come along to film it. (Video coming soon)! I’m not sure the size as I didn’t go with Mike to register him but I would guess a 2 year old bird. He had about a 9" beard and was about 20 lbs with about 3/4" spurs. A trophy none-the less!