Hunting Forum

After battling all those early morning wakeups, mother natures downpours, warm temps, other hunters, uncooperative birds and old age on my part I finally got a bird.  Yesterday was PA's last turkey day and after so many early morning wakeups and disappointments my son and I finally found a somewhat cooperative bird.  Actually 6 of them.  We walked to a young cattle pasture at the base of the mountain across the valley from our homes.  We set up with a decoy and in the semidarkness heard a bird do a classic flydown cackle below us in the woods.  I have to explain that this particular turkey has been encountered several times before and neither of us can determine if this bird is male or female even at 15 feet I could not tell.  It clucks, putts, calls and semi gobbles but has the appearance of a hen and is without a beard.  Once again it kept up the turkey chatter below us and when our attention returned to the pasture there was a turkey in full strut but about 200 yds away.  I looked at him with the binos and he had a long beard, at least good enough for the last day hunt.  Another bird arrived and it too had a long beard and the first bird began to strut and kept circling the second one.  It kept this up for several minutes so this bird became the merry go round gobbler.  In just a few minutes another bird flew down then another till there were 6 birds in the field, all with red heads but only the first two with long beards.  They finally started our way and after what seemed like an eternity they were about 90 yds away and suddenly turned to the right and fed away from us.  My heart sank as this seemed to happen to me all season.  They did not seem to respond to any calls so we just shut up.  Well it worked and they once again fed back over to us and after another eternity fed into range.  Now I had the problem of too many eyes looking for danger while I tried to find a bird with a long beard that was far enough away from the others that I would not shoot more than one.  By this time my shotgun felt like it weighed 30 lbs and several skeeters were happily making me their breakfast with more buzzing around.  At last one of the long beards was in the open and away from the others enough for a shot.  I pulled the trigger and that bird took a dirt nap but I was so cramped up I could not jump up quickly so my son who had already tagged out a week ago jumped up and got to the bird.  My season is over and at the 11th hour.  It is no record breaker but was a solid 2 yr old bird with a 9 inch beard and one spur at 7/8 inch and the other was 1 inch.  It weighed at just shy of 17 lbs.  What a great feeling to end the season on the last day with one on the ground.

Great story, don't you just love it when the hard work finally pays off and it all comes together.Hopefully, one of these days my luck will change.

Congratulations PA Ridgerunner !!

Thanks guys . As you can tell I really like to turkey hunt. The old body may not let me do some things I used to do but where there is a will there is a way. As far as I can tell this is turkey # 20 and hopefully there will be some more. I used to be a big deer hunter till only about 12 or 13 years ago. Then I found out how exciting turkey hunting can be and there was no turning back. Don't get me wrong I still like to hunt deer but the turkey bug h{1}**** and pushed its way to the front. Those early morning wakeups result in a reward of joining nature in observing the daily wakeup and the springtime temps are much easier to take than what one encounters in mid winter. I guess it boils down to the fact that an old dog can learn new tricks. One correction to my first post is PAs spring season actually ends on the 31st.

Way to stick with it!! Congrats!

Way to go, PA Ridgerunner! Congrats on a well earned gobbler!

Congrats Paul! I wish I had half the ambition you have at times! LOL!

Congratulations! Way to hang in there.

Congrats man!

well this 67 yr old man TRIED for his first turkey. Grabbed my o/u 3 1/2, 12 and went out. Crawled within 35 yds of a nice tom and gun went click. Opened gun and switched shells. shot and bird rolled, no more shells. Then he got up and ran into private property. By the time I located the owner the bird was gone. Sad day. Set up in a diff area and managed to call a hen into my set up, 4 diff times and had her within 4 feet of blind. Now durn it I'm hooked. Buying up all the bells and whistles that strike my fancy. LOL

Yes Mowgle that is how it begins. Remember just when you think you have something figured out in this turkey hunting a bird comes along and changes the game plan to something else. P.S. take some more shells next time. Lol

Posted By PA RIDGE RUNNER on 05 Jun 2012 06:33 AM
Yes Mowgle that is how it begins. Remember just when you think you have something figured out in this turkey hunting a bird comes along and changes the game plan to something else. P.S. take some more shells next time. Lol

Truer words were never spoken. If it can happen in turkey hunting it will happen. I do believe Murphy's Law was created by a turkey hunter.

Congratulations, I also killed my first Turkey (S) this year. I have been Turkey hunting for 5 years and i agree that if it can happen it will while turkey hunting. my first bird was 20lb, 11 and 1/2 inch beard with 1" spurs. you couldnt whipe the smile off of my face for a week, luckily enough I got my second bird the next morning, so my first 2 birds the first 2 days of the season. Hooked for life. Congrats again. Our season is April 1st til April 30th. Good luck with the future hunts.

Thanks for the reminder about more shells. Spotted this tom near a road, didn't think I could get close, so crawled towards it and and and well you know the rest. Now I need a turkey fix before I go nuts . But season closed up in Mi the 31st, long wait for next yr. Congrats svodila and  ridge runner glad to hear someone had a great yr.

You know, calling in a bunch of hens can be GOOD. No other decoy or call will be as good as the real thing. Congrats Paul, knew youl'd get em...

Thanks Brian and as a tribute to you those birds responded to the call of yours I won the other year on another site.  How are you doing these days.  Praying for ya man.

Still fighting the fight Paul. As long as I can kick hard enoughh to get a dust cloud,(even a small one) I figure I'm on the right side of winningh for the day.

Glad to see you BWARNER best wishes and heal fast.