Hunting Forum

I took this nice turkey hunting with friends in OK last spring and got the mount back over the holiday break. Terry's Taxidermy & Game there in Oklahoma City did the mount and shipped it to me. They did a great job, he looks great. I do not know who packs their stuff for them, but the box was beat to crap when it got to my house. The side of the box had a hole in it and the two screws that held the base to the bottom of the box were so bent that I had to break them off to get them out (could not turn with a screw driver). The bird was completely un-damaged; they really secured him well in the center of the box. This is the second biggest Turkey I have ever taken, so when I decided to get him mounted, I found Terry's place on the internet. I had to take a chance on them sight-un-seen as I had to fly out the next day to come home. I left the bird in a freezer he has out back the last night I was in OK. The chance paid off, the bird looks great. Shoot, I got to watch him strut in for about 150 yards and he never looked as good as he does on the mount, feathers are so perfect. My friend called him in for me. About an hour later, I called in this guy’s brother for my friend. It was a great hunt and now I have this guy to help keep those memories bright in my mind. (Sorry for blathering on some )

jack
 

Looks good

That is beautiful.

Great job....getting the bird 1st and then the mount!

Awesome looking gobbler! Congrats!

And no need to apologize, Jack. We all love hearing these stories...

Quick where is my shotgun, where are my shells.... Oh it is a mount never mind. Good looking mount.

Nice!!

I really like that mount. I really had not considered a full mount. I would consider that.

Great looking full body! Excellent job. Taximan knew what he was doing.
I got my Mexican birds full body mounted, other four are "wall" mounts. All are quite decent and done by Mike Goodwin, Southeast Taxidermy,1019 County Rd 335, Jackson , MO63755. He likes birds and does excellent work but by far the best turkey mounts I have ever seen were Shane Smith's World Tax 1st place prize pair of Oscilated.....Shane is down the road about 45 minutes from me in Bridgeport, AL and a friend.....may be the best "bird" taxidermist in the world! I got some ducks mounted by him before he was world reknown-----awesome jobs. My SE MO bud loves birds too and I have several awesome mounts from him----I usually just say make it different and he does sumthin cool!
Anyway, I rambled, great mount jboshoven!

Managed to get to OK to hunt with my friends for opening day today again this year. All four of us scored today. We (the two in the picture) had these down by 0830 this morning, my other two friends got theirs this evening. We rousted a bunch tonight, will try to fill our second tags tomorrow. Will be more discriminating tomorrow, but the first two are at the smoke house with the pit master tonight. Cannot wait to pick them up in the morning, last year the smoked meat was just excellent.

jack 

Got to our spot a bit late this morning, but they had not come out of the roost yet. We barely got set up and at the first call they came down out of the roost. Two jakes made a mad dash to our set up. We passed, looking for Tom's as our smoked turkey would be ready at noon. Those stupid jakes kept coming around about every hour to hour and a half until noon when we picked up for lunch. One of the other guys got a nice Tom however this morning. Moving to another place tomorrow morning. Weather is supposed to turn bad, so I hope we have at least a decent morning hunt.

Got the smoked turkey at noon. Man it is as good as I remem bered from last year.

jack

Wind, Wind, Wind. We set up in the same spot that we took the two birds in last year (see first post on this thread). I am not sure how, but we managed to "call in" a flock of Turkeys. What was weird is that the Tom had a nice beard (it dragged the ground, but do not dare guess how long, similar to the one I took last year) and long spurs, was with 5 hens and 2 jakes. Anyway, we called our fool heads off and apparently they heard us because they came in along the wood line opposite the field (80 yrds across) we were sitting on. They made a dash across the field toward us, but never got closer than 60 yrds to us. Once we saw them, we stopped the loud calling and I started purring and putting at them. My friend was about 6 yrds from me and said that he could not hear me calling to them because of the wind. As they were past him (further from me) I suspect that they did not hear me. I was hoping that once they crossed the field and got into the edge of the woods with us they would turn up toward us. No such luck. The afternoon was even worse with the wind. I found a spot out of the wind, but having never set in that spot before, not sure when the birds came around there. There were Turkey tracks, but nothing answered or showed up. Oh well, we had a great time, more memories with my friends. Back to Korea tomorrow.

jack